A Fresh Start
by ChaosLilKat
Summary: (If you haven't read "Darkened Warriors, Lost Spirits", you may want to.)Picking up where "Family is Who You'll Kill For" left off. We find the Boys trying to start over again. Since Roy is looking for a new sense of purpose he convinces the Boys to take him under their wing. They are all a bit surprised when they come across a job that requires a call to an old friend, Coyote.
1. A Fresh Start

_(If you haven't read "Darkened Warriors, Lost Spirits", you may want to. I am using Running Coyote again in this story) Picking up where "Family is Who You'll Kill For" left off and incorporating Roy leaving Starling we find the Boys trying to start over again. Since Roy is looking for a new sense of purpose he convinces the Boys to take him under their wing. Unfortunately the first job they pick is, as usual, not an easy one and they have to call in an expert. Coyote._

I managed to make it four weeks before I got restless and started combing the papers and the webs for jobs. Sam and I cleaned Oliver's house to the point where I'd even started to get OCD about dust. The first week Team Arrow +1 had left us pretty much alone, which worked for us. We fished, watched TV and movies in that crazy ass media room, made as many huge meals as we could. About day five Sam had started to clean, which I couldn't really blame him for since Oliver hasn't been charging us. I tried to weasel out of it, more to irritate Sam then out of a real sense of laziness but Sam rather forcefully shoved a roll of paper towels and wood cleaner into my hands on the night of day five and told me "Start cleaning." Maybe it was the fact that he was standing less than two feet away from the pile of beer bottles that he'd had gathered together while cleaning the entire living room that made me decide to help. Sam wouldn't actually hit me with a bottle but why risk it, so I rolled up my sleeves and started polishing the wood furniture that hehadn't gotten to yet.

Week two Oliver and Dig dropped by a few times and Felicity visited for dinner four nights that week but it was Roy we saw the most of, which was kind of odd. At first Roy just seemed to want the company, not really asking questions. He talked about sports, random current events you know, small talk.

It was the beginning of week three that he started being a bit more bold. "Um, would you guys be okay answering some questions?" He asked in the early evening about midway through week three.

"Kind of surprised you waited this long," I answered. "Usually most people who've seen what you did and still want to talk to us usually ask questions. The ones that don't want to talk are usually running as fast as they can to the next state. What's on your mind?"

Roy tugged a bit nervously at his black t-shirt and looked down, "Oliver hinted and so did Sam that you guys have been doing, well, this, for a long time. What got you into all this? I'm guessing it's nothing good so if you don't want to get into it that's fine."

I looked at Sam who shrugged but gave me a quick nod. "My turn huh?"

"Might be good for you," Sam replied.

"Not sure why but all right. It's not like we don't have time to kill. Get comfy kid, it's a long story."

Roy leaned back on the couch, kicked his shoes off, pulled his legs up and focused entirely on me.

There was no hesitation in Roy's gaze or bearing, he wasn't asking idly as a way to pass the time. There was something driving the question, "You really want all the details?"

"Yeah, well whatever you want to say anyway."

"All right then," I figured that the hard, straight back chair I'd been sitting in wasn't going to work for a conversation that was liable to last for several hours and relocated to the dark brown, microsuede recliner across from Roy. Sam stayed seated on the end of the love seat that was perpendicular to the couch Roy was on. I settled in and started talking. "I know you've seen a little of the weird, freaky side of things but trust me, that was nothing to what started all of this so try to keep an open mind and hold your questions till the end."

"Sure," Roy replied.

"Right, so I was about four when all of this happened," I started going through all the crap kind of surprised at how different it felt now. Usually when I think about all of this that good ol' guilt and gut wrenching fear I felt that night would feel so real, like I was living it again. This time, not so much. Did all the crap with the Mark finally get me past all that? If so, talk about irony. The thing that was using all that shit to destroy me may have ended up fixing me. Never saw that coming. I worked my way through us being kids, the training and then skipped to Dad disappearing and going to get Sam from college. By that point Roy was about bursting at the seams with skepticism and questions. "Start with the questions. I'm parched from talking, Sam can take over for a bit while I hydrate."

Roy didn't say anything at first, he was too busy looking completely lost and confused. "So, your Dad based off a random hunch that something supernatural was involved in your Mom's death turned your childhood into some sort of twisted super soldier training?"

"How many women have you ever seen get pinned to a ceiling and burned alive?" Sam shot back. "Same thing happened to my girlfriend in college."

Roy's head instantly turned and he looked kind of horrified, "What?"

"Yeah, we hadn't gotten there quite yet," Sam continued, "We'll get there in a minute. What our Dad saw was only the beginning, he didn't start training us to be hunters right away. Hell I was only six months old after all. He researched, found other hunters, found out about the darkness that lurks in the shadows, that's when he decided to train us. It wasn't just about revenge for our Mom, although that was the thing that drove him for the rest of his life. He was worried about us, he knew he'd hunt for our Mom's killer but he also knew that doing so would put us in the line of fire. Ultimately he did what he did to protect us."

I never, ever thought I'd hear him say that. Guess I'm not the only one who's looking at things differently. I chose not to comment on what Sam had said, saving that for later, "Roy, did you know Oliver before he was shipwrecked?"

"No, well, I saw his name in the papers but," he chuckled, "Let's just say we didn't exactly have the same circle of friends."

"How did you two hook up?" I've been curious about that. Roy looks like a model but he moves like a fighter. Probably a street kid, he sort of reminds me of me. Or at least how I would have been with less drama in my life at that age.

"He saved my life, literally," Roy replied. "I grew up in The Glades, screwed up Dad, had to protect Mom, did what I could to help her out, help the family out." His eyes shifted off of Sam's face and stared out the sliding glass door. "Got involved with the wrong people. Actually stole a purse from Thea, that's how we met."

"Not the best way to pick up chicks there Roy."

Roy gave me a pretty flat stare, "Yeah I kind of know that, thanks Dean. Anyway, Thea tracked me down, pounded on my door late one night and demanded I give her her purse back." He seemed pretty proud of Thea when he said that. She definitely takes after her brother.

Sam sort of smirked before he joined in, "I can see that, she's not the type to take something like that laying down."

"No, she isn't. I gave her her purse, more out of respect for her venturing to the crappy side of town I guess then anything else. Then she left, I trailed her, saved her from some thugs and we sort of hooked up. She got me a job at the club."

"Aww, how Disney of you."

Roy pointed at me and looked at Sam, "And why exactly did you want to save him?"

Sam shrugged, "He grows on you, either that or I'm secretly an emotional masochist. Some day I may figure that out."

Smart asses, "Hey, right here, just sayin'"

"Oh, sorry Dean," Sam continued, "Didn't see you there."

Roy snorted and gave me a pretty cocky look, kid's got attitude that's for sure.

"Sorry. Anyway, back when Oliver was first starting to fight crime I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, got kidnapped by some insane bastard and Oliver took the guy out just as he was about to end me. I'll admit to a slight case of hero worship at first, I started trying to find out who The Hood was, tried to emulate him. Took on thugs..." he seemed slightly embarrassed by that, "Pretty much sucked at it. Drove Oliver nuts until Dig I think, talked him into seeing me as an ally instead of an irritation. I started out just passing information to him, then he started training me." Those words seem to age him, make him more mature and I realized that I'd been seriously underestimating him. It was definitely time to rethink this one, he may not have hunted monsters or been through what Oliver has but he's seen his fair share of hell. I was too screwed up when he helped with the ritual to get that good of a read on him and haven't paid too close attention to things since we've been on this vacation. I still didn't quite get why he was asking about us though.

"He got me the suit a few months ago, dubbed me Arsenal, then started taking me out with him on missions."

Pretty sure there's a lot more to that story. "So you've seen a lot of evil crap humans can do and when Oliver saved you it gave you some sort of purpose. Right?"

"Yeah, after that, I guess I wanted to do something different. He knew Thea and I were dating, he saved me because of her originally but he told me that I could live a better life somehow. Stop being a petty thief and working for gangs."

"That's basically what our Dad did,"

"Except that he taught us how to be good thieves," Sam interjected, "Hunting doesn't come with a salary or health benefits."

"True, I'll rephrase and cut to the chase of what Dad taught us, hunt things, save people. That's the family business." It felt good to say that again and actually mean it. All this crap over the last few years, I think we've both lost sight of that. _"_ Trying to find our Mom's killer was his thing, he tried to keep us out of that hunt for as long as he could. He'd been in the Marines and he still had that sense of saving people that couldn't save themselves. So no, our Dad's obsession to find out Mom's killer didn't make him train us, it was that he knew too much, saw too much suffering the farther into the hunting life he got and wanted us to make a difference. Just like you, Oliver, Dig and Felicity try to do. You take down criminals, we take down monsters but we do it for the same reasons."

Roy processed that, it took him a few minutes but he didn't seem too phased by what we'd told him.

He finally nodded and spoke up, "Makes sense. I guess that's the only question so far."

"Sam, you talk. I'll get some beers."

"Sure."

Sam picked up where I left off and I went to get some more beers. I remember thinking that Samwas right, that the talk would be good for both of us. Roy, maybe not so much.


	2. Nostalgia

I handed Sam his beer settled back down in the recliner and focused on Roy. I didn't really need to pay attention to Sam, I lived it after all. What's behind the questions? As Sam went over Jessica's death and a very, very brief recap of the next few years; my trip to Hell, his walk on the dark side and the Apocalypse Roy kept glancing back and forth between the us. I don't think he could quite believe we were both still here, hell sometimes I don't. The few times he said anything his comments were aimed more at what we were feeling at the time, not the monsters or the resurrections.

Sam paused and took a drink of his beer so I decided to jump in again."Trust me, we should have been dead years ago. Well technically we were."

It was kind of odd that our various deaths weren't what he focused on, "Yet you're still a team, Dean, even with all of that."

"Who the hell else would put up with this crap? Not that we haven't had our moments, but yeah, we usually manage to muddle through somehow."

"Huh," Roy pulled his phone out and took a quick look at it. "It's pretty late and I need to work at the club tomorrow morning. Thea rented it out for some event, I should get going." It was weird because he cut things short, put his shoes back on and got ready to leave "Thanks for telling me all that."

That threw us both off, "Sure. Is something going on?"

Roy's face went blank but not fast enough, something was seriously bugging him, "Not really. Thanks." He bailed way too quickly for it to be casual, leaving Sam and I staring at each other.

We waited until the door closed then Sam set his beer down, "Okay, that wasn't odd."

"Did you talk to him at all before the ritual?"

"Not much, had other things on my mind. When we were prepping the basement he asked how we managed to keep doing this for so long and how we know what choices to make. He brought up how Oliver handled the whole League of Assassins thing, he didn't seem too thrilled with it. I got the impression that he felt Oliver was going a bit off the rails, not listening to anyone. Not that we would ever do that."

"Course not, we're the poster children for rational decision making." I caught myself rubbing at where that damn Mark had been, seems to have become a new thing. I kind of have to force myself not to do it. Weeks later and I still can't quite believe it's actually gone.

"I brought that up, but he said that I seem to think ahead and try to see consequences before picking a path."

"He's not wrong on that one."

Sam stood up, grabbed our bottles and tossed them in the makeshift recycling bin we'd made in the kitchen, then grabbed the last two cold ones out of the fridge and handed me one as he walked by. "I kind of get Roy though, Oliver's a lot like you and Roy sees him as a role model of sorts."

I opened mine, took a long drink. Why the hell they look up to me I don't know. "You both should have higher standards for who you look up to. We aren't exactly stable productive members of society."

"C'mon. What superheros are?"

"Superman was sane and Oliver and I are hardly superheros."

"Yeah, but he was an alien. I'm talking the human ones."

"Yeah, okay, point. Still though."

"I don't know, the whole group was pretty messed up when we got here. Maybe he's trying to figure out how to help them work past whatever happened."

"Maybe."

We stayed up for another hour or so then went to bed. Roy didn't show up again until the following week.

Waking up at Oliver's place is always a new experience, seeing the sunrise over the lake isn't something I ever seem to get enough of. I opened my eyes Thursday morning of the fourth week and watched as the wind caused random ripples on the surface of the lake. I knew if we stayed out here much longer we'd forget how to hunt. Even though I'd gotten restless there was definitely a part of me that wanted to take another week or two more, especially since the last time I held weapons I just about killed Sam. I know it's gone, I know I'm me again but still. I just can't trust it, I can't trust anything, not after the last few years. There's only one way to find . After we knew for sure that the Mark was gone Dig had returned our weapons stash and Sam had locked them in the trunk, not out of concern but more to make it very clear that we were on vacation didn't need to have all that crap lying around in plain sight.

I got out of bed, showered, threw on clothes, grabbed the keys and ended up staring down at the lid of the trunk. "It's not like they're going to jump out at me. I need to get a grip." I opened it, unlocked the compartment, propped the lid open with the shotgun and took stock of how I felt. No violent urges, no hate. I picked up my 1911, the weight of it felt good, like reconnecting with an old friend that I hadn't really paid attention to lately. I took that as a good sign. "Sorry darlin, haven't been myself lately." I told her. Out of sheer force of habit I checked the clip and the chamber, shoved the clip back in and set it back down. The knife I'd taken off of Cain glistened in the early morning light, the reflection from the sun hit me eyes and made me look away. Then all those fucked up memories started coming back and sent my adrenaline through the roof not from Mark induced rage or a desire to kill, but out of sheer disgust. My stomach twisted as faint hints of the things I'd felt came along with the images. That's when I decided to leave it there, I didn't even want to pawn it off. Who knows what crap was attached to it now.

Gravel and dirt crunched behind me, "Hey," Sam's hand landed on my shoulder, "You good?"

"Yeah." I pointed to Cain's knife, "Take that and toss it in the lake or bury it somewhere."

Sam didn't ask why, just grabbed the blade and some of the rope we always keep handy then started walking down the dock. I stayed by the trunk waiting, a few moments later I heard a rather large splash of water and Sam reappeared. "Done. Tied it to a rock. I'll tell Oliver it needs to stay down there too." Sam gave him a long look. "Ready to hit the road again?"

"If we don't leave soon we should probably start paying rent."

"True, and we don't make near enough to pay for that place. You want to have them all up here for dinner or something before we take off?"

"I hate long goodbyes."

"And?"

Sam knew me far too well to buy that as the reason. "Just want to get back to our normal again, I guess." And see if it really is gone _._

"Hey, it's gone. Really." His face was full of hope and reassurance, as usual.

"Our track record for happy endings is pretty craptastic. I'll withhold actual optimism till after we do a few jobs if it's all the same to you."

"Well we should at least see them before we take off. I'll call Oliver let him know we're heading out in a few hours and that we'll drop by the club on the way out of town. He'll understand."

"Thanks. Let's get some breakfast."

We stalled over breakfast, as much as we wanted to get moving, I had to admit I wasn't all that thrilled to drive for thirty hours again. Oliver's place had made me soft.

The door bell rang, I looked at Sam who shrugged. "You're turn."

"Gee thanks," I walked down the hall, opened the door and was somewhat surprised to see Roy standing there, whole truckloads of resolve on his face, "What's up?" What the hell was he so worked up about?

"Oliver told me you guys were taking off today."

"Yeah," I stepped to the side to let Roy in.

"I, I sort of wanted to talk to you about something."

I shut the door, "Not really feeling nostalgic," I said as we headed towards the dining room.

"Not about that.."

"Roy?" Sam asked, "Something wrong?"

"No, well kind of." Roy shifted his weight, trying to hide his nervousness, "Look, I know this is kind of weird and awkward but I wanted to know if I could come. I'll take my own car so I don't crowd you guys. I'm guessing you two probably need to get your feet wet hunting again after everything that happened here."

I was stunned, he hadn't given any hints he wanted to hunt all of a sudden. He'd also been dead on with Sam and I needing to ease back into the job.

Sam set down the dish he was cleaning, wiped his hands on a towel and leaned against the sink. "Uh, what? Why?"

Roy opened the fridge, grabbed a beer, popped it open and took a long drink.

"Well at least you got the drinking part of the job down."

The look Sam shot me spoke volumes.

I shrugged "What?"

"Nothing," Sam replied then looked back at Roy, "How about you fill us in on why you're looking at a career change?"

"I'm not, not permanently anyway." He stopped. An awkward, embarrassed and slightly ashamed look crossed his face. "Uggh, not sure how to say this without sounding like I'm whining or bashing Oliver."

"Just talk," Sam said, "We won't judge."

"Okay, Oliver sucks at running a team," he blurted then stopped and winced.

"Well, that was blunt."

"Dean..." Sam sighed, "Go on Roy."

"It's not all the time, but he seems to forget that we all have strengths too. Felicity just does her thing whether or not he tells her what she should do, sometimes I feel like she's the one running the whole thing, not him. He shuts us out half the time and always seems to be making things up as he goes. He never really plans anything. So much of what has happened could have been prevented if he'd just listen to Dig or Felicity or even me sometimes. He's always reacting."

Sam and I stared at each other for minute, everything Roy was saying pretty much applied to us too. Most of it was all the things we'd decided to try to fix. "When you're in it, it's pretty hard to see three or four moves ahead sometimes."

"Especially dealing with shadowy things like the League or an expert manipulator like Malcolm," Sam added. "Trust me, most of the time we're just making it up as we go along too."

"But you handle it differently. I watched you. When Dean was too screwed up to see you he still worked at solving things, figuring it out. When you, Cas and Felicity were working on decoding that ritual thing you all respected each other, listened to each other."

"Do you think Oliver doesn't respect you? Or Dig? Or Felicity?" Sam asked.

"No, well.." His eyes said what he couldn't.

"Remember what I told you back in the basement? Oliver's not exactly going to tell you he's proud of you. Hell it took me almost dying the third time for Dean to come out and admit that."

"I do Sam, I just, I just think I can learn more from you two right now then him."

"Yup, need better role models, both of you." It was time to put an end to this whole thing or so I hoped. _"_ Roy, look I appreciate the compliment that somehow you think we'd be the perfect Mr. Miyagi to your Karate Kid but we're honestly more screwed up then Oliver. At least here you have Felicity and Dig, they're level headed. Dig's the one you should be trying to learn from. That man is as solid as a rock and I'm not just talkin' about physically."

"Yeah he is, maybe if Oliver listened to him..." Frustration creeped into his voice. "He bailed on us, I know you understand why but I never will. He protected Merlyn of all people from the League, then was going to take the fall for everything. He wouldn't let us come up with other ways to handle it either. He made his choice and didn't even consider what the rest of us would go through because of it!" He'd been getting angrier as he spoke and his fist hit the table top as he said the last few words.

"Calm down, sit. All that aside, what do you think you'll learn from Sam and I?"

"How to talk to Oliver, make him listen. How to plan better, how to be better. Half the time I'm out with Oliver I feel like I have no real clue what I'm doing, not with the fighting. That I know, been doing that all my life, but how to think, see what he sees, pick up on what he does. We don't move like a team, hell he and Dig still don't even though they've been together longer. Oliver busts into places and moves so fast that I can't follow him and we never seem to get around to having time to talk about it later. I sort of got the vibe that maybe you two would be easing back into things and so you might have time to teach me."

"And Oliver doesn't now that Merlyn's gone? The best way to learn to think like Oliver is to be right next to him. Sam and I move and think completely differently than Oliver does, and hunting monsters is way different than taking on crooks."

Yeah, you're probably right." Roy dropped his gaze and started to turn away when Sam stopped him.

"Hang on. Give Dean and I a second will you?"

"Uh sure. I guess."He picked up his beer and left the kitchen.

"No, just no."

"All right Oliver.." Sam replied, his eyebrow raised in a bit of a challenge.

"Really? Fine. Why?"

"We wanted to go back to basics right? What better way to do that then to be teaching someone else?"

"We know how to hunt Sam. We don't need remedial hunting classes."

"It's not about the physical part of hunting, we could lop off heads in our sleep, hell we pretty much do. It's about everything else. Having him around will make us think things through, go slow. He said it wasn't going to be permanent. That and I don't want us to fall back into our old patterns. If we're responsible for Roy it will force us to do things differently."

"I can't babysit without knowing..."

"First off," Sam interrupted, "Roy is perfectly capable of taking care of himself and you know it so cut the babysitting crap. Secondly, ever think that having something other than that possibility to think about might help you? I know you're going over every little thing you think and feel searching for hints that it's still there. With Roy around, asking questions, being something different on a hunt it will take your mind off of it. What was the point of these last four weeks if you're just going to drive yourself right back to the dark side of things by being paranoid?" Sam took a few steps closer and something about the look on Sam's face brought up that night in the church when Sam chose to live instead of seal the Gates of Hell. "These last few weeks we've managed to be brothers again, not hunters, not brothers fighting some jacked up fate, just brothers. You know as well as I do that once we get back in Baby and on the road again we could lose that. When we're out there, hunting, we've always acted a certain way. We both agreed to change, but it won't happen overnight. What Roy thinks we can teach him, that's sort of how we agreed to try to be. Think about it." Sam backed away and returned to the sink where he picked up another few dirty dishes and started scrubbing them.

He had some good points not that I actually had to admit that _._ "All right, just so you don't call me Oliver again. At least I have a sense of humor. I'd never threaten to stick an arrow in some guy's tires just because of some worms."

"No you wouldn't, you'd just steal the guy's car or have it towed." Sam replied without even looking up from the sink.

"Well yeah, but not for worms. Maybe a snake or something."

"Nice to know you have a sense of scale when it comes to things you'd trash people's cars for. So Roy's in?"

"Sure, let's make it a field trip," I muttered.

"Let's hope Thea gave him a permission slip or things might get dicey before we even leave town."

"Oh hell. How about we tell him where to meet us, then split. Really don't want to face her, she might manage to kick my ass."

Sam laughed, "I'd pay to see that."

"Laugh it up, she'll be mad at you too."

"Crap. We'll do it your way."


	3. Road Trip

"Well let's tell him." I stuck his head out into the hall, "Roy, you're coming."

Roy's head peeked out of the media room door, he looked like he wasn't sure if he should be happy or terrified about coming with us, "Really Dean? You're okay with this."

"As long as Thea doesn't try to kill us in our sleep, sure."

Roy finished walking into the hallway and grinned, "Actually I've already talked to her, believe it or not she's fine with it."

"What? How did that work?"

"Before going off with Merlyn she was having a hard time dealing with Oliver coming back from the dead yet being so distant," He returned to the kitchen and he hopped up on the counter next to the sink. "The whole secret identity thing. Anyway she got pretty heavy into drinking and drugs, Tommy, Oliver's best friend from way before the island, intervened I guess but he got killed in the earthquake. She took the club over after Tommy died, he'd been managing it, that gave her something to focus on but she was still pretty screwed up. Merlyn, asshole and killer that he was, managed to give her a whole new life for a few months, trained her, made her stronger. She told me that even though he ended up betraying her in the end that she wouldn't trade away those months, they saved her life. She knows I've been having issues with things and thinks maybe some time away would help put things in perspective."

"Huh," Sam grunted, "Well good to know we won't have to worry about her coming after us, Dean was pretty sure she'd make an idiot out of him by kicking his ass."

Roy eyed me like he was sizing me up before a fight, "I'd put my money on the 130 lbs woman, she's crazy fast and you sort of look like you're past your prime."

"Age jokes, really? Sam, this is why I don't let you make new friends. Somehow I always end up outnumbered."

"Consider it karma for being an obnoxious older brother when we were kids."

He would bring all that back up, bitch. "That was my job! All older brothers tease the crap out of their kid brothers when they're young."

Roy nodded, "Sorry Sam, have to back him on that one. I have a younger brother and I was kind of jerk to him too."

"Then watch and learn," Sam warned, "Kid brothers have learned patience and long range planning skills. We always get our revenge in the end."

"Well, if nothing else this trip will be a lot more entertaining then hanging around Oliver," Roy pointed out, "He has no idea how to relax."

I couldn't argue with that, I'm damn funny after all. "I've noticed. Well now that that's been settled, you go tell Thea bye and we'll meet you at the club in three hours. You telling Oliver too?"

"I guess I should," Roy answered as he slid off the counter top, "That's going to be a slightly uncomfortable conversation."

"Tell him why," Sam suggested, "Not as bluntly as you told us but I think he may be a lot more open to hearing what you have to say than you think. It's quiet and he has a little bit of breathing room. He won't judge you, I know that. He may scowl at you but that's probably the worst it'll be."

"Thanks guys, really."

"Sure. Oh if you don't have a grey or blue suit, get one," I mentioned.

"A suit?"

"Yeah, for when you're pretending to be an FBI agent."

"You do that?" Roy looked a bit shocked at that.

"Yup, and here you thought running around in red leather was the most uncomfortable thing you'd ever do. When it comes to that just follow our lead. It works, you just need to have the right attitude when you talk to people. Unlike you and Oliver, we hide in plain sight, no masks. Keeps you on your toes."

"Right, I'll get one and meet you at the club." He turned and left.

"He's game, I'll give him that.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, "I'm starting to think if Oliver doesn't realize just what Roy is really made of he may lose him."

"You may be right. Let's pack and get ready to clear out." I hated to admit it but I was going to miss this place. I got what Sam meant when we were driving up here, being away from everything, everyone. Gives you time to clear your head. Hope Oliver keeps it.

Packing didn't take us all that long so we spent the last hour and a half or so chilling on the deck, not really talking just taking in as much of a sense of peace as we could before we were neck deep in vampires, ghosts and who knows what else again. I finally looked away from the lake and tapped Sam on the arm, "Let's do this."

"Yeah."

We put the bags of trash from the last few days in the backseat, shoved our bags in the trunk, took one last look at the house, got into Baby and followed the driveway back to the road. I turned on the radio as they hit the road and had to smile when "Fly By Night" by Rush came on. I thought it fit pretty damn well actually _,_ seeing as how we were trying to start over. "We'll drop the trash off at that convenience store's dumpsters and head to the club. Text Oliver that we're on the way in case Roy didn't give him our time frame."

"Sure," Sam answered then started texting.

"I was looking for a job the last few days, found one in Colorado that may be interesting and it's on the way home." Plus it'd given me an excuse to not clean.

"Really? What'd you find?"

"Random odd "hiker deaths" that they keep attributing to animal attacks but something's off with the autopsies. They read almost the exact same for each person."

Sam got that look when he's already three steps ahead, "Someone trying to hide something?"

"Sort of feels like that."

"How many?"

"Five over the last few weeks. Park rangers say they're out looking for a rogue mountain lion but it must be a pretty small cat because from the pics I saw the bites are nowhere big enough."

"Vamps?" He asked.

"Could be," I pushed the gas pedal down to accelerate out of a tight curve. I'd really missed driving her. "Might be a good one to start Roy on. Vamps are relatively easy."

"Sounds good."

I was drumming the beat out on the steering wheel and decided to roll down the window to feel the air racing by as we drove. Sam shot me one of the best smiles I'd seen in a while, rolled his window down and started rocking out a bit too. Between the music and the road I guess a little bit of hope started to sneak into my brain. _Damn, I think our luck may finally be changing. First time in years it actually feels good to be on the road, doing what we're supposed to instead of all this other crap. I've missed hunting, actually fucking hunting._

Thirty minutes later we'd made it to the club and everyone's car was there. "Gang's all here I guess,"

"It may be a longer goodbye then you wanted," Sam mentioned.

"It's all good."

"Drive felt good huh?"

"Yeah," I replied as he keyed in the code and opened the door. "It really did."

We walked down the stairs and saw that all of Team Arrow +1 and Thea were waiting for us

"Hi." Felicity said and tried as best she could to crush us with hugs. Another time, another place, I'd go for her. Although she's probably a better fit for Sam. She was dressed for work, a sleek, fitted blue dress, heels and her hair was up. "So how about you drop by sometime when things aren't bleak and desperate?"

I hugged her back, "We'll try."

She tried to get all stern which only makes her cuter, "No, you will. I'm not letting years go by before we see you two again. Got it?"

Sam nodded, "Got it, we'll swing back through in a couple of months, or maybe you guys can come to Lebanon. We know where you're super secret hide out is, you may as well know ours."

Roy was standing next to Oliver, they were both dressed in jeans and t-shirts, Dig was behind them in slacks and a button down black shirt.

"Sort of feel like most of Starling knows about this place these days." Dig said, "I'm always up for a trip to somewhere new."

Felicity backed away and I walked to Oliver first and went to shake his hand, "Thanks for not charging us rent. Sam went OCD on cleaning the place so it looks pretty good."

Oliver pulled me in for a quick hug, "Sure thing, I'd been looking for a cleaning crew so if you two want to drop back by in a few months and dust it I'd appreciate it."

"We'll pencil that in," Sam deadpanned.

I tried to pull back from Oliver, but be tightened his arm around my back and spoke directly into my ear, "Let's talk."

"Sure."

Roy's slightly awkward look gave me a hint as to what this conversation was going to be about. Once we were out of earshot of everyone Oliver faced me, his face and eyes looking somewhere between Oliver and Arrow on a bad day.

"Hey, we'll keep him safe. Trust me."

"That's not what I'm worried about, he can take care of himself."

"All right, what is?"

"Thea's not as fine with it as she told Roy. She's not lying, she supports him, but he already chose one rough life over her teaming up with me. I know I'm not the best at teaching, or guiding, or whatever he's looking for heading off with you two but I'm just worried about her."

I looked at Roy and Thea. They were chatting with Sam, holding hands and Thea was lightly leaning on Roy's shoulder. "My opinion, he should stay here and marry her. She's tough and is willing to forgive an immense amount of crap from both of you, but he's not going to back down from what you instilled in him. He's a good guy from a screwed up past, you gave him direction. He just wants to be better at it. I told him we're more jacked up than you are but he's game."

"Why didn't you tell him no? He would have listened."

"Sam pointed something out to me and Roy pointed it out too. We have to ease back into hunting and Sam and I agreed to try to do things different, Roy will make us do that. We'll have to take it slow to keep him safe."

Oliver's eyes went from mildly threatening to angry, "So you're being selfish?"

"No more than you were when you cut all of them out of your choice to go play martyr." He didn't like hearing that but it made him calm down, "That's what seems to be bothering Roy the most. You keep them in the dark, don't listen and run off to save the world all by yourself. And yeah, I know exactly how that sounds coming from me. Roy thinks you don't respect him, deep down I think that's what driving all of this. He thinks he's not good enough, that you won't take the time to train him and he had no clue how to get through to you. I guess since you and I are so much alike he figures he can learn all that from watching Sam and I work together."

That seemed to surprise him, "I don't respect him? That's what he thinks."

"He didn't exactly come out and say it but yeah. Look we'll keep him for a few weeks then send him back. You get this group functioning again then when he comes back you'll have time to focus on him. I will tell you one thing though."

"What's that?"

"From what it sounds like, you severely underestimate him. Not sure if you're doing it because you're trying to protect him or because you just haven't noticed what he's capable of. Think about it. Keep it up you may be back down to three team members, not four." I started to walk back to the group when he stopped me again.

"Here," He handed me a key, "When you guys need the house again, it'll be there. Everything else aside, I agree with Felicity. Stay safe and drop back by when you can."

"You sure about this? We may bring strippers next time and say the place is ours."

He laughed, "We can make it a guys night then."

"Hmm, Felicity can hack into anything, Dig's married to a high level government operative and Thea was trained by an assassin. Are you sure that's a good idea?" He obviously hadn't thought that all the way through and the smile on his face disappeared. He looked away from me and back at Felicity and Thea, I could see him running all those scenarios through his head.

"On further consideration, you two enjoy the strippers and the rest of us will stay as far away as possible."

"Good choice. Thanks for the key." I hadn't expected that at all. Was good to know we didn't push our luck staying so long.

I made my way back to the group, said my goodbyes then me, Sam and Roy headed out to the parking lot. Roy walked to the red and black Mustang and unlocked the door. "Where are we headed?"

"Carbondale, Colorado. Hope you have a lot of tunes, we drive about eight hours straight a day when it's not an emergency."

Roy nodded, "And when it is?"

"We don't stop till we get there." I slid into Baby's driver's seat and flipped through the tapes until I found ELO. I knew what had to been playing right then, "Long Black Road" time I think Sammy."

"I'm down."

"Let's see what Roy's made of." I backed away from the club, spun her tires and hit the road.


	4. Dive Bars

We ended up driving nine hours with a few quick stops along the way. By the time we pulled into the motel parking lot Roy was looking a bit worse for wear. We got two rooms, dropped our bags off then Sam and I went to check on Roy who was laying across his bed looking like he was trying to stretch out some kinks.

"We're heading out for some drinks, come on."

"I'm good."

"Actually you need to come," Sam said, "We're, or rather I will be researching a few things and figured we could start giving you an idea how this all works."

Roy's groaned and sat up, "If you're researching what's Dean doing?"

"Driver gets to drink and hit on chicks, shotgun gets to work."

Sam pointed at himself, "Guess who's always shotgun."

"It's a division of labor that's worked well for decades, no reason to change it now. C'mon."

Roy stood up, stuffed his room key in his pocket and followed us a few blocks down to the dive bar we'd spotted on the way in. "You guys seriously do this every day?"

"Not as much as we used to," Sam answered, "Once we found the Bunker and had a home base to work out of we aren't on the road as much, but yeah, before then, this was pretty much our life."

"But when you were kids, this was how you grew up?"

"Yup, motels, pool halls, dive bars and school," I replied. "Made for an interesting education." And for some really jacked up entertaining stories.

"And you still got into Stanford Sam?"

"Yes."

Roy just stared at Sam for a minute or two.

Still wish that had been a better day for him, one of the biggest regrets I have after all these years. Don't think I can ever make it up to him. I should have been happy for him.

"That's, well, pretty damn impressive."

"Thanks," Sam's tone made it pretty obvious he didn't want to dwell on it.

We walked into the bar. It felt good to be back around my people, except for one minor problem. Usually when we hit a bar there's a certain amount of eyes that I get, men sized us up judging possible fight opponents and women usually stared at us, well mostly me for a few minutes. Sam gets a few long looks, but I tend to get a helluva a lot more. This time half the eyes passed me by and locked right onto Roy and the bastard didn't even notice.

"Be right back guys," Roy said and headed to the restrooms. A sea of eyes followed Roy's every step until he disappeared into the back hall. Some of the women took a second look at me, like I was a consolation prize and of those about three or four gave me a quick smile then went back to their drinks or conversations. Am I that old?

"Don't I feel like the jilted ex seeing her guy's new trophy wife."

Sam had no damn sympathy either, just choked down a laugh, "Now you know how I feel. I'm liking Roy more and more."

"Shut up Sam."

We found a table where he could watch most of the bar using the mirror that ran along the back of the bar and keep an eye on the back door. Sam sat across from me to cover the front door, the bathrooms and the ramp down to the room with the pool table and dart boards. It felt almost claustrophobic in here after Oliver's place, I was going to have to re-adjust. The walls were decorated with various neon drink signs snd mirrors, a few crappy band photos and some dents. Warped dark wood floors came out a few feet from the bar then shifted to beat up, scratched black concrete. The ceiling was low which made the lights hang low enough that Sam had ducked a few as we walked in.

I caught a waitress's eye, she nodded and headed in our direction, her steps matching the beat of the music that poured from the jukebox. She had short, spiky black hair, silver rings several with large stones protruding from them covered her fingers. She wore low cut tight jeans, cowboy boots and a black zip up leather vest. Her eyes were no nonsense blue and she wasn't wearing much makeup. She wasn't my usual type but wasn't unattractive either.

"What'll it be sugars?"

"Double for me, bottle of Sam Adams for him. Thanks."

"Got it." She nodded and sidled off.

Sam set his laptop on the table, turned his phone's wifi hotspot on and started pulling up news sites. "May as well walk Roy through what to look for. I want to take a closer look at those autopsy reports and pictures too."

I spotted Roy coming back from the bathroom, "Speaking of. He's not nearly as observant as he should be." Although his eyes were shifting around the room it seemed that he wasn't focusing on the things that he should be. He kept looking at the bikers and the few guys at the bar but not really anywhere else. He's too used to looking for obvious threats, not subtle ones.

Roy sat next to Sam and took a brief look at the laptop screen which had several pictures of corpses on it, "Well that's not disturbing."

"Autopsy photos."

"How did you get those?"

"Same way Felicity does," Sam replied with a quick grin.

"Ah, okay."

The waitress returned and set our drinks down, "Double, Sam Adams. What'll you have?" She asked Roy.

"I'll take a Tecate."

She took a closer look at Roy, "You got ID?"

"Sure." He pulled out his wallet and showed her his license.

"Got it," she said with a quick nod and walked off.

I pounded my double and looked at Roy, "That got your real name on it?"

"Yeah."

Amateur.

Sam didn't even look up from his laptop screen, "We'll fix that tomorrow."

Roy didn't get it, "Why? I mean we're just having a drink."

"Secret identity versus hunting," I said, "We're always on the job. That waitress could be a vampire, werewolf, demon minion who knows what else. She now knows your name. We only use our real names in emergency situations, like hospital visits. Probably still not a good idea but it's been getting a bit more complicated to get health insurance with fake ids."

"You guys have health insurance?"

"Didn't used to but we seem to be getting more mangled these days. At any rate, tomorrow we get you a fake id."

"Just don't let him pick your name," Sam warned. "Trust me, it will be hideous."

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Sam's researching the case. We think there are vamps involved."

Sam took over, "Right, look at these bite marks."

Roy looked and shrugged, "What am I looking at?"

"Five different people's necks." Sam pointed at the necks of the corpses in the photos, "Now it's hard to see on some of these photos but these bites right here. Those are more than likely vampire bites. All the other wounds were given after the vampires had fed. They left enough blood in the bodies so they didn't raise too much suspicion, bloodless corpses confuse authorities. All the scratches and gashes are distractions."

Roy sat there for a minute trying to put all the pieces together. The waitress showed back up with his beer, he took it from her with a brief smile and took a pull off the bottle without even pouring it into the mug she'd brought it. I was really going to have to teach him dive bar manners. He stood out like a sore thumb.

"Rough day huh?" She asked.

He tried to cover but was horrible at it, "Getting there."

"I'll take another double," Trying to distract her from Roy, not because I was jealous or anything, but because he sucked at acting. Really, I swear.

The waitress shot me a long look. "You too huh?"

"Nope, my day's going fine, just wanted another reason to see your smiling face."

She grinned and winked, "Smooth sweetheart, real smooth." Then she turned away and headed back to the bar.

Sam raised his eyes from the laptop, "Feel better? Less like a jilted ex?"

"Was that really necessary?"

"Just making sure you're able to handle the competition." Sam answered with a sidelong look at Roy.

"Hey!"

"Why do I feel like I missed half of this conversation?" Roy asked.

"It's not important. Focus on vampires, both of you."

"Sure thing," Sam replied and pulled up another screen, "The official story on the bodies is rogue mountain lion or animal attacks. These are photos of mountain lion attacks. Notice the differences?"

Roy pulled the laptop closer and switched back and forth between the tabs, "Yeah, I see it. So why isn't this raising flags to the park rangers who are supposedly investigating the mountain lions."

"Either they are in on it, scared or someone above them told them to go to their job and shut up."

"Dean's right," Sam said. "It's usually one of those three things."

Roy took another drink, "This is what you guys do then? Search news reports for things that are off and then try to find what's really killing people?"

"Yup."

"There can't be that many monsters out there though. I mean how often do you actually find a vampire or whatever."

"We've been doing this all our lives Roy," Sam stated, "I can rattle off the names of at least thirty or forty other hunters, and most of them know another twenty that I don't. If this was a once in a blue moon kind of thing do you think there would be that many of us? That we would never have settled down? Had a normal life? Think about it."

I picked up where Sam left off, "This year we've been busy with other things but on average we wipe out about twenty or so vamps a year, a few werewolves, a handful of vengeful spirits and other assorted crazy things. So yeah, there's a lot more out there than you would think."

"Then there's the witches and demons," Sam added.

"True."

"I, uh," Roy stammered.

"Like I said," I repeated. Roy's not dumb but not many people understand hunter life, "We're always on the job." _._ "Look, I'm not saying that what you guys do back in Starling is easier but what I am saying is that this is much more intense. You guys aren't up against things that see you as food, that can lift a car with one hand, choke you to death without even touching you or disappear and reappear faster than you can blink. We're always reading the room or area around us. I was watching you walk through the bar. What were you looking at as threats? What are these people's stories?"

"Threat wise? The group of bikers over there, the two guys in the corner by the exit that just look shady and that's really it. What do you mean stories?"

"This is why you miss what Oliver sees. Oliver had to survive in a world with 360 degree threats, so do we. All right, keep up. Under the far end of the bar there is a double barreled shotgun, and looks like a 45 on this end, you can barely see them in the mirror behind the bar. The blonde bartender has a knife tucked into her boot, I saw it when she came around to clean the table, the guy behind the bar has a shoulder holster. Moving left to right down the bar; the two dressed up chicks are here because they thought it would be exciting to slum it for a night and think they can find an easy lay here. The three guys next to them are regulars and debating screwing the girls but not drunk enough yet to ask. The chick sitting alone, just got dumped, the guy on the end is meeting someone probably to do something illegal. He has a gun in his waistband and is nervous as all hell. As far as the exit door, the bikers are mostly harmless and probably come here a few times a week. The shady guys you referred to are probably under cover cops watching the nervous guy at the end of the bar. They've barely touched their drinks and have kept him in their sights the whole time. Sam?"

Sam kept his eyes on his screen as he spoke, "Right, the young couple in the booth are about two seconds away from having sex in public as a thrill, the group of women in the corner booth are what we've dubbed Dive Bar Divas. They are regulars in dive bars, like playing pool, darts and the vibe of the place. They get hit on constantly by drunk guys and you're liable to get punched if you push your luck as Dean can attest to. From what I can see of the people playing pool there's two tables that are in some sort of league and having fun, the others are just killing time. I can't see the far back table down there though. There's two women that are in the bathroom right now, guessing they're best friends or dating and in their early twenties because they are mostly plastered and not getting more than two feet away from each other. Oh and the guy sitting in the shadowed table has been eyeing us ever since we sat down. He wasn't too thrilled when you got the waitress to smile so he's either a possessive boyfriend, jilted lover or a stalker. Can't tell yet."

Roy just stared at us, "You picked all that up in less than five minutes?"

"Yeah. I thought you were a street kid. You should be a lot more observant."

"It's not like I was in a gang or trying to become a professional thief. I tried to avoid most of the heavy crap that went down."

"Well you're neck deep in the heavy crap now so either commit and catch up or head back home, put up the mask and marry Thea."

"If I wasn't committed to this I wouldn't be here right now would I?" Roy challenged.

Sam finished off his beer, signaled to the waitress he needed another and closed the laptop, "Take a long hard look at where Dean and I are, where Oliver is and make damn sure that you're willing to end up like us in ten or fifteen years. What you and Thea have, is it worth losing that to do this? Keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Dig's lucky, not saying that you couldn't be too but the odds are against it."

"Not to throw your own words back at you Sam, but you're the one that told me that when things get rough it's the memories of the people you've saved that keep you going. Maybe instead of worrying if I'm making the right choices you teach me how to stay alive. If I get killed because I missed something I won't have a chance to end up like Dig will I? I'm going to go crash out. Give me about an hour to get ready before we leave tomorrow." He threw a few dollars on the table and left.

"That answers that question."

"Definitely," Sam agreed, "He puts a lot more thought into things then we did at his age."

"He's had the luxury of someone else doing all the hard work and sheltering him, we didn't."

Sam opened his laptop again, "Good point."


	5. On The Job

The next two days consisted of long drives and teaching Roy the basics. We had a lot of ground to cover to prep him so Sam rode with him until we got into Carbondale. I didn't really mind the alone time, the weeks at Oliver's had been about Sam and I figuring out where we stood after getting rid of the Mark. As much as we needed to talk, air out all our hidden crap it wasn't something that I was all that comfortable with. Sam being Sam, once I opened up a little he stuck a crowbar into the inch I gave him and ripped things wide open. I guess I could have left and avoided all of it but he'd been inside my head, it's not like he didn't already know. There wasn't any real point in keeping shit from him now.

Once we pulled into town Sam and I changed into our Fed threads and were getting ready to get Roy when he walked in. It was pretty evident who had picked out his suit and it wasn't him. The cut was trendy, it reeked of money and was definitely designed to attract attention, "Uh Roy, FBI agents usually don't get name brands."

"Sorry, I told Thea I had to get a suit and she wouldn't let it drop. You didn't specify cheap suit."

I made a mental note to be very specific with all future instructions to Roy. "It's all right, you can distract the secretaries while Sam and I work."

"Thanks," Roy grumbled, "I think."

"Poor Thea, she's going to end up with a Deanclone if you stay with us much longer."

"Enough." I was getting a bit tired of being the butt of both of their jokes. "We have vamps to hunt." I took another look at Roy. "Sam you hit up the ME, Roy and I will chat up the grieving family."

Sammy didn't look too thrilled at that and it wasn't because he had to look at corpses, "You sure? Those are pretty tricky conversations."

"Some of the hikers were early twenties." I reminded him, "The traumatized girlfriends should have no problem opening up to him. Trust me." Roy didn't seem to appreciate my vote of confidence.

"Really? People aren't that shallow Dean."

"Never said they were. What I am saying is that people are more likely to pour their grief and secrets out to someone they can relate to. Sam usually does his puppy dog eye sympathy look and gets people to spill in less than five seconds but we need to cover a lot of ground fast. You don't know what to ask at the ME's office, he does and I gave my word to Oliver that I would keep an eye on you. So Sam goes to the morgue and you and I talk to people. You follow my lead and push them when they start clamming up. Trust me Roy, I'm playing to your strengths here."

"Fine. Whatever. Who are we talking to first?" He'd obviously gotten used to not knowing all the reasons why he was doing something, even if it pissed him the hell off.

"Ms. Rebecca Chase, twenty three and recently engaged to Simon Harris, deceased. Ride with us, I'll drop Sam off at the morgue then we'll head to her place."

"Got it."

It was only a ten minute drive to the morgue. Sam got out, Roy switched from the back seat to shotgun and we headed for the outskirts of town.

"Remember, you're Agent Henderson right now and I'm Agent Ragsdale."

"I know. What did Sam mean when he said you picked horrible aliases?"

"No idea." He was too young to appreciate the classics so I just put a random name on his ID. No point wasting a good name on someone who wouldn't get the reference.

Ms. Chase lived in a duplex that looked somewhere between freshman at college and starving artist. The outside was a nondescript brown color but she'd added several colored wind chimes and potted plants around the door that cluttered up the small yard she had. We pulled up and he started to get out. "Wait. Tell me what you think of her. What do you see?"

"She likes color and really likes to make a place her own."

"Not bad, check out the door when we walk up. Locks, anything on it, all that."

"Okay."

As soon as the door came into view I was pretty sure the type of person she was. A wooden sign with "Namaste" hung on the door, she had the security door propped wide open and the narrow window by the door was covered with purple fabric which was decorated with white and gold stars and moons. Hippie, new ager and probably a yoga addict.

"You talk to her once I tell her who we are and why we're here. I'll ask the main questions, you follow up off what she says." I told him, "Be relaxed, open and don't lean to heavy on the FBI thing. Ask her for tea."

"What?"

"Do it." I knocked on the door and ignored the quick glare he shot at me.

The door opened and the scent of incense just about choked me. She was wearing black yoga pants, a white tank top, her green eyes should have been filled with tears to match the grief on her face. No matter how many of these I do it still hits me. How much pain these people go through because of what we hunt. I guess as long as that happens I know I'm still sane, still me, still have a soul. She had jet black hair which was up in a ragged bun and had one of those Celtic puzzle rings on her ring finger. I took a closer look and saw the small diamond on top, must of been a custom job. Damn.

"Yes?"

"Hi, Ms. Chase?"

"Yes."

Funny how when you use people's last names they instantly know you have bad news, "I'm Agent Ragsdale, this is Agent Henderson, we're with the FBI." I flashed my badge, Roy followed suit and unlike Cas, managed to make sure it was right side up.

"FBI?"

"Yes, we have some questions about Simon, if you have a minute."

She went from confused and scared to grateful, "I knew if I kept putting it out there, trying to manifest help, someone would show up! I'm so glad you're here! Come in, please."

Roy was still trying to catch up with the fact that someone bought the fake ids so I gave him a quick shove when she wasn't looking to get him moving.

"Thank you," I said once we stepped inside. It had to be a one bedroom, the hall off the living room was too short for anything else. The living room looked like an Ikea designed yoga studio, simple furniture all low to the ground was scattered around and there more carpets on the floor than any reasonable person should have. In the center of each wall was one of those chintzy bamboo scrolls that had Japanese symbols for "Peace," "Harmony," "Love" and "Courage" on them, at least that was what the English translation said. I always figured they said crap like "Stupid American," and "Easy Target" on them but who knows.

Once I got past the Namaste Ikea furniture explosion I saw she had wedding planning stuff sitting on the coffee table, the invites were dated for two months from now. Then I saw the photos of her and Simon, they were either kissing, laughing or smiling huge grins in every single one. None of them were staged, most of them looked like printed out selfies. Another happy couple destroyed by monsters.

She sat down on this weird kneeling chair thing, I took the tiny couch and Roy sat on this oversized pillow on the ground. There was another chair he could have taken so I was a bit surprised he'd taken the pillow. He was learning fast, putting himself a little below her head height, making himself unimposing and blending into her world instead of standing out as an authority figure. He was making the most of the opportunity to learn something new, I had to give him that. He looked up at me, waiting for me to start.

"We're sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she said with a slight sniff, "But you have to do something, investigate what's going on. What they're saying, about a mountain lion, it's completely wrong and I don't want an innocent creature to lose it's life."

"What do you mean?" Roy asked while pulling off a pretty damn good impression of Sam's puppy dog "I understand you" look, wrinkled forehead and everything. I never could get that look down, no matter how many times I practiced it in the mirror. I always look like I'm begging for something, not empathizing.

And, as usual, once someone sees that look I'm pretty much invisible. She laser focused on Roy and probably forgot I was even in the room. Between being ignored at the bar and this it was starting to be pretty obvious if I ever wanted to have any luck with a chick in the future, Roy would need to be somewhere else, preferably in another state.

"He wasn't even going hiking that day! He was supposed to be meeting me at the florists!" She stopped, closed her eyes and did some weird breathing thing then kept going, "Where they found him was miles away from any of the trails we usually go on. He didn't have any water and wasn't even in hiking boots. He'd never, ever do that. The police tried to brush it off as maybe he was getting cold feet about the wedding or some idiocy. We've been planning this for months and have been together for three years." That's when she finally looked at me again, for a hippie chick she looked pretty damn scary. I got the feeling I could hand her the machete and let her take care of the vamps herself. She didn't look very namaste filled, "Someone or some...thing did this to him and it wasn't a mountain lion."

Roy shot me a quick look, not quite sure what he was supposed to say next I guess.

"Did he live here?"

"Yes, he left early that day. He had to go to work before I did and that was the last time I saw him alive."

She was keeping things pretty under control. I needed to go snooping. "Do you mind if I take a look around?"

"Help yourself, not that you'll find anything."

"Just routine ma'am."

I caught Roy's eye and glanced at her mug on the table, he got it immediately. "Do you have anything to drink? We had a long ride up."

She nodded, "Of course. What would you like?"

I left them discussing types of tea and headed into the bedroom. It was small but cozy. The comforter was one of the few things in the room that wasn't multicolored and filled with random Sanskrit sayings or drawings of chakras or whatever the spiraly things were supposed to be. The walls had several framed landscape photos that looked like they were taken in the hills around town, there were a few books and boxes of things on shelves and a small desk. Nothing caught my eye or screamed "Vamp kill", unfortunately. The photos of him I did see when they were out in the woods he was always dressed for hiking and had a bag, the photos of the scene Sam had managed to hack into he'd been in slacks and what was left of a dress shirt. The vamps must be snagging people from town, dragging them out into the woods and leaving the bodies, which wasn't a bad way to cover their tracks. I knew what we had to do next, we hadn't had time to do it before but I was hoping if we figured out where each body had been dumped we could figure out where their killing ground was and take them out in the woods. It's never good to massacre vamps in town, gets noisy.

Since the bedroom had been a bust I headed back into the living room, just before I cleared the hallway I decided to hang back and see how Roy was handling things on his own.

"When did he disappear?"

"A week ago,"

I risked a quick glance into the kitchen, they were sitting across from each other at her barely two seater wood dining room table. Roy was leaning slightly forward, completely intent on what she was saying and it was pretty obvious she trusted him. It was like watching a younger version of Sam except with better hair and fashion sense.

"I called the police that day when he didn't show, they made me wait a whole day before declaring him missing which was ridiculous. His car was still at work, he hadn't made it back after lunch why would they think he wasn't missing!" She did that breathing thing again as soon as she noticed that her hands had curled up into fists. Rebecca must have had a temper at some point in her life that she was using yoga to control. Maybe I should check that out since my temper manages to keep getting my ass into trouble.

"Unfortunately that's standard procedure but I agree, they should have taken you more seriously."

He's smooth, have to give him that.

"They sent out some search parties after that but I didn't feel like they were that intent on finding him. They wanted to give up after the third day! Who does that?"

She had a point, usually they wait a week before thinking of quitting.

"Especially after the other bodies that they've found in the hills over the last few months. I don't know why they didn't look there first. Simon and I were thinking about moving after we got married because of those reports."

"Did you know any of the other people?"

Apparently I wasn't really needed.

"No, but not all of them lived in town. Only two of them lived here, the other's were from some of the surrounding towns." She took another sip from her mug and stared out the kitchen window towards the mountains in the distance. That was all she knew, it was time to move on. I walked in and they both turned to look at me.

"Thank you for your time ma'am. Here's my card, if you remember anything else call us."

She took it and then wrenched my heart out just like all the people who get left behind do. It's that daring to hope look they always give us, when they don't want to expect miracles but deep down they hope Sam and I can pull off the impossible and make sense of something senseless. What sucks is that the truth is usually senseless, their loved ones died because something was hungry, there's no sense to be had. Well, at least no sense that they want to or can understand. I never have figured out how to tell a grieving mom, kid or husband that the person they lost was just part of the supernatural food chain; and that would be the easier thing to explain. Ghosts and demon possessions, those are even worse.

"Thank you, I will."

Roy reached across the table and lightly touched her hand, "We'll do everything we can, I promise."

And now I knew the real reason he came along and it wasn't just Oliver sucking at being a leader.


	6. The Whys and Wherefores

Every damn thing about him was focused on helping her, finding answers. When his eyes met mine I may as well have been looking in a mirror, well a mirror from ten years ago. I waited until we got outside and back in Baby before I said anything and he was too busy fuming about Rebecca being in so much pain to talk.

"Two things, first, you didn't want to come along just because of Oliver's leadership style did you?"

He kept his eyes focused front but shook his head.

"Right, okay, second thing. Shove that anger down, save it for later. Now how about you tell me the real reason you're here."

"We don't help the people of the city anymore, at least I don't feel like we do."

"Didn't you guys just save them from the League?"

"Which would never have been a damn issue if Oliver hadn't sheltered Merlyn!"

He was beyond pissed.

"He did that for Thea."

"Bullshit! The best way to protect Thea would have been to be upfront, you know that Dean!"

If he clenched his jaw any tighter he was going to break some teeth. I should know. "We've been over this. Why are you holding onto it still? He made his choice, right or wrong, if you want to work with him you've got to get past shit like this."

I figured we may as well take the long way to the next house and turned onto a side road that seemed to lead up into the hills.

"It's been months since we actually stopped drug dealers or helped the police catch actual damn criminals. What we used to do. All his "choices"," he put a pretty bitter emphasis on that word, "have kept us from doing our real job. Help the actual people, save them, put criminals behind bars. Dig and I had a huge conversation a few weeks back about how when Oliver first showed up as the Hood he had a list of people to kill from his Dad. Some conspiracy thing that Merlyn was a part of. Then Dig convinced Oliver to actually fight for the people, not his own agenda. That's why I'm still alive, because Oliver was trying to stop crime."

"Okay, and?"

"Then Merlyn comes back, starts shit and all of a sudden we're back on Oliver's agenda. I've tried to go do things on my own but it's seems like every damn minute Oliver needs something or is off trying to get killed without telling us why."

"Anyone know you're out doing the solo vigilante gig?"

"No. And yes, I know hypocritical that makes me."

"Wow, pot, kettle and all that. If it makes you feel any better you've been acting the same way Sam and I used to. Congrats, you've learned everything you can from us. I'll get you your hunter/vigilante diploma and you can be on your way. Good luck." He didn't even grin a little at that. "So you came out with us to what?"

"Felicity and Oliver told me about what you guys have done, at least what they know and it sounded like no matter what happened you guys still remembered to do your job. Save people. I just wanted to see how you managed to stay on track even with the world blowing up all around you, and.."

He gave this sort of half shrug thing and stopped talking. "You wanted to help people without all the drama?"

"I guess. Just do what feels right for once."

"Well, I won't argue with you there. I know that feeling all too well. Let's get back to it then. Rebecca, her story, what did you think?" The topic change threw him off, I figured I owed him an explanation, "One of my other guiding principles in life, no chick flick moments."

That cracked him up and it was kind of obvious he hadn't had much to laugh about in a few months.

"All right, I'll remember that. I didn't really get any red flags other than the cops being lazy."

"Lazy or covering for something. That many bodies dropping and the cops don't go right into the hills when someone gets reported missing?" I let him mull on that for a few minutes.

"I see where you're going. Sam told me vampires sometimes have nests. Is this normal for a group of them feeding?"

"Every hunt is a little different. We came across a nest that was pissed one of theirs had switched to eating bagged blood and became a cop. They were killing people in his area simply to piss him off and try to get him back in the group. They ended up killing him because he refused to start hunting again."

"Wait? A vampire was a cop?"

"Yup, a pretty decent one too from what we found out. Did you think monsters were any more black and white then people?" He didn't answer but he didn't really need to. "Any monster that either used to be human or is somewhat human-like can be technically good. They can make the right choices, try to live without killing people. Some do, some don't. Some days we just decide to wait and see, if we have to come back later and take'em out we will." We'd come to a stop sign so I took a long, hard look at him, "I get it, you want to help people. Nothing about that goal, no matter what way you decide to do it, vigilante, hunter, lawyer, cop, doctor, therapist, doesn't matter; all of those jobs and lives will always have hard choices, choices you'll regret and choices that even looking back you have no idea how the hell you got so screwed up. Easy is not part of any of those job descriptions."

"I know, I don't want easy. I just want something that makes sense, feels right."

A car was pulling up behind us so I started driving again, "Sometimes those things don't even apply."

"Are you telling me to quit then? Go home and be a mechanic or something?"

"No, I'm just not going to lie to you. You wanted answers, that's why you came with us. These are the answers I've got. Never said you'd like them." He turned away from me and stared out the window, I wasn't really trying to crush his dreams but he needed to know the truth. "Look, for what it's worth you handled Rebecca perfectly. Got her to open up, talk. That's a huge part of what we do. What we see in the news is usually nowhere close to the real story."

He shrugged and didn't seem all that excited with my attempt to make things better, "She wanted to talk, it wasn't that hard."

"Maybe. Next one may not be as easy. Ex-husband."

"After that, then what?"

"We hook back up with Sam, get lunch and figure out our next move."

"Sounds good."

We got to the ex-husband's house. I took one look at the door and just kept on driving.

"Wasn't that the house?"

"Yup, a couple days of newspapers stacked in front of the door."

"You think he's not home?"

"Probably not. We'll swing back by after dark, check the place out."

"You mean break in."

"Well yeah, it's not like we can get a warrant. We may not even have to depending on what Sam finds out."

He just shook his head and sighed, "I think it's somehow possible you break more laws than we do."

"No way. With what Felicity hacks into? Please. That woman breaks more laws in five seconds then we do in five months."

"Point, hadn't thought about that."

Just as we pulled back into the city limits my phone buzzed and Sam's name popped up on the screen "Hey. So?"

"ME is scared and stonewalling. He just kept telling me that everything was in his report, wouldn't look at me and kept checking his phone. We may want to relocate outside the city limits."

"Crap. Think he's checked in with someone?"

"Either that or the janitor thinks my ass is hot."

"Picked up a tail already. Lovely. How far down?"

"Three blocks east, around the corner, I'll shake him."

"Got it."

I hung up, looked at Roy and saw he was all business. "Someone made Sam?"

I dug out the room key for Sam's and my room, "Someone made the fact that Sam was asking questions. I'll drop you off back at the hotel, grab the bags and your car. We'll get a hold of you in about thirty minutes with a new hotel. Spend that thirty minutes seeing if anyone is following you."

"Sure thing."

He was out of the car and moving before I even came to a full stop in the hotel parking lot. As much as he'd said Oliver hadn't trained him I saw Oliver in how he moved. He wouldn't be as devastating as Oliver was in a fight but he'd more than hold his own. I accelerated, texted Sam I was taking the long way and to give me a landmark to pick him up at. Seconds later I got a picture of an antique store sign and an address. I double backed, took a few u turns and in general drove like a lost tourist till I was pretty damn sure no one was tailing me, pulled up in front of the store and he was moving fast up the alley. I pulled out before he even shut the door. "Find a new hotel, text the address to Roy. I'll play in traffic some more and see if your tail has wheels."

"On it. I lost him, I think. I'll give you directions as we go."

"Sweet." There were a few suspicious looking SUVs but unless our friend had a whole horde of soccer moms working for him it wasn't too likely any of them were trailing us. By the time I headed in the right direction to get to our new digs none of the cars that were on the street where Sam get into Baby were behind us. "Clear. We'll go over everything once we get into the rooms. Check with Roy on what he wants to eat, fast food joints coming up on the right."

A few texts later Sam spoke up, "He said he already ate, no one's following him. He got all our stuff and is heading to the new place. Want him to get the rooms under Henderson?"

"Should be safe, Rebecca's not in on whatever this is and it's a common name."

He nodded and sent the texts. We grabbed some food and made it to the new place about twenty minutes later. Roy had texted our room numbers to us which was handy.

"Either he got lucky or is thinking ahead," Sam in between drinks off his soda.

I didn't quite catch what he meant till I started looking at the room numbers. Ours were on the corner, second floor which gave us a rather useful view of the intersection and both sides of the street. It also came with a handy dandy parking space around the side that couldn't be seen from the street; all thanks to the wall in front of the place. "Nice."I parked next to Roy's car and spotted Roy in his street clothes standing on the balcony, watching the traffic.

As we headed up the stairs he flashed a quick thumbs up sign to us and opened a door to a room, "No one followed you from what I can tell. No cars slowed down or double backed."

"Good eyes," I told him, "You ask for these rooms?"

"Yeah. The clerk was twenty something girl who seemed lonely," he answered with a quick grin. "It's a suite, the rooms hook up through the bathroom. She gave me the FBI discount and her phone number."

"Told ya, play to your strengths." Sam and I settled down at the table, ate fast and then we started comparing notes.


	7. Patterns And Problems

I tossed all the food wrappings in the trash while Sam grabbed the box of thumbtacks from his bags along with all the articles and information we had on the job so far and started tacking stuff up on the wall. "All right, the ME's reports aren't exactly lies, the most recent bodies all have the same wounds and look like the died the same way. What he isn't stating is a hunch I have but it's a pretty strong one based off how pale his face got when I asked if any organs were missing."

"He said no but meant yes?"

"Yeah, here look. I printed off some pics I took while I was waiting for you to pick me up and trying to lose my tail. Notice anything?"

"Yeah, the ME knows Photoshop, there's more wounds then in the pics I found."

"Exactly."

"And all the new ones are all nice and neat and right over some major organs. Those bite marks don't look vampish though. Did he alter how those looked too?"

"Not sure, but in the first photos they were still all bloody so made it hard to tell for sure. They don't look like vamp or mountain lion bites."

"They were also pretty crappy shots," Roy chimed in. "I didn't really say anything at first since you guys look at these things all the time but they didn't really get any detail. The shots you took with your phone look better."

"Good point." Sam agreed, "I should have picked up on that."

He pinned up all the crime scene photos, a map, the obits and all the newspaper articles about the various deaths then stepped back. Some hunters have gone to doing all of this on laptops or computers but that never worked as well for me. Maybe I'm old school but I can make those random connections that give you the hints you need to go to the right part of the lore and find what you're up against a lot easier when I can see everything at once. Maybe Sam and I need to invest in one of those TV screen sized monitors for the Bunker, that could come in handy for other things as well.

"Dean!"

Sam interrupted that train of thought, damn him. "Huh?"

"Do I even...no probably not. Dead bodies, remember?"

"Right, yeah." Maybe it was because I was thinking about positions that drew my eyes to how the bodies were laid out at the crime scenes. "Hey, look at how they're posed at the scenes."

"That is kind of weird."

And he says porn's not useful.

Roy took a closer look and something registered in his mind. "Wait, look." He pointed at the photos of the bodies Sam took, "These two, the henna tats on their wrists. Don't they kind of look like how they were posed?"

"Nice catch." He gave me this odd, shy, grateful grin that disappeared fast. It was just one corner of his mouth but I was definitely going to have a talk with Oliver. I mean, I'm not the best with positive reinforcement but still, it's not that damn hard to say good job every now and again. Something about the symbols struck a nerve with me, "Sam? Those aren't usual witchcraft stuff. Don't they look kind of Native American?"

"Now that you mention it, they do."

"Well so much for that idea."

Sam sighed and started typing on the laptop, "It was a nice thought while it lasted."

"What? We don't deal with Native American monsters?" Roy asked.

"We do."

"So?"

"So. These aren't vampire kills. Which means no vampires. Which means complicated. Which I really didn't want our first job back from vacation."

"Oh. Uh. Sorry?"

"Not your fault Roy, I picked this job not you."

"Which was our first mistake," Sam pointed out.

"Thanks, really."

Roy ignored us and kept staring at the photos. "Uh guys, is that supposed to be a swastika?"

"Looks like, but it's backwards."

"Uh what?" Sam stopped typing and stared at the photo. "Oh hell."

The woman's arms and legs were bent at right angles, not broken but there was a definite attempt to replicate the symbol.

"Neo Nazi's?" Roy offered.

"Not necessarily, Hitler perverted the meaning of the swastika," Sam explained, in that half muttering, half excited way he gets when he's putting clues together. "It was tied up with Navajo culture, along Indian as in Hindus and pretty much throughout the world. Usually meaning good luck, peace or healing. Look it up some time, this is backwards though."

"Which usually means the opposite of whatever it's supposed to mean, so in this case bad luck, war or death." I added, "What's the symbol on the other body? "

Sam started typing again, "Uh rough guess? Avanyu, the feathered skysnake and he deals with violent, sudden change. I really wish I had gotten to see the other three bodies, they'd already been released to the families. I'll see if I can enlarge any shots of their wrists and look for tattoos."

"Well, we know they're laid out to match those tats. Before you do all that pull up some Native American stuff see if we can match it."

"On it."

"Hey," Roy said, "If whoever did this went to the trouble of posing them and tatting them do you think they put them in places on purpose?"

"Probably," I hate it when things get layered like this, Sam loves it. I like my jobs easy, give me whatever it is I need to kill the monster and point me at it. "Let's plot the bodies while Sam's busy."

It didn't take us too long and after the third one I already knew how it was going to end up. "This is not good." There was one body at each point of the compass and the snake god one was in the middle.

"No, it's not. More rough guesses but take it for what it's worth." Sam said and turned the laptop around so we could see the screen.

There were a few options to pick from since so much of this symbolic stuff has multiple meanings but the general theme was death, destruction and righting wrongs. Pretty much all the things that give Sam and I bad days, or weeks. Hell let's be honest, years. "Great."

Sam frowned, "Dean, I think we're a bit out of our league here. The Men of Letters don't have a lot on Native beliefs and even if they did it it's all back home and I'm getting the feeling that something big is going to go down soon."

"Someone's prepping something that's for sure. I'll call her."

Roy had been trying to keep up but was pretty well lost at this point, "Call? You guys know someone that's an expert in this stuff?"

"Yup, she's a Shaman, used to be a hunter."

"Among other things," Sam decided to add and a whole ton of unasked questions popped up in his eyes. I decided to ignore them for now and grabbed my phone, "Her name's Running Coyote, Coyote for short, she's Lakota." And, mostly to avoid thinking about the questions Sam wasn't asking I went out on the balcony and shut the door before I'd even pulled her name up on my phone. This was gonna to be interesting.

She and I had had one of the most surreal conversations I've ever had after I got back from Hell. How does one tell a woman that he'd said goodbye to that he's back from thirty years of being tortured, and, although what he'd said in a letter that he'd been pretty sure was the last thing he'd ever say to her was the truth, that it was complicated? Hi, so about that whole dying thing? Funny story. Oh and did you hear about the impending Apocalypse that I sort of started? It had taken me a few months to actually even call her once Cas pulled me out of Hell. I wasn't even sure if I should but something told me she'd hear about it one way or another. Sam and I had gotten a rather large reputation because of that whole disaster so if she was still hunting she was bound to hear about it. I figured it was safer to have her yell at me over the phone then wake up one night with her standing over my bed, pissed and wanting to beat the crap out of me. Not that I would have blamed her.

She took it incredibly well and reminded me that our visions had shown us that I was going to be rescued. Then she snapped at me for waiting so long to tell her, then it got uncomfortable. I hadn't really planned on coming back when I wrote that letter. I hadn't lied, I did love her, I just wasn't sure what to do with that. Fortunately I managed to use the Apocalypse to buy some time. Then Sam came back soul less, then there was the three or four other times we had to save the world or each other, again. That didn't leave a whole lot of time on my calendar for anything else. We still hooked up, at least at first but it wasn't the same, it wasn't better or worse, just different. Those words were always hanging there between us. Then Rising Dove, her mentor died.

I went back and spent a few days with her afterwards. That's when she called me out about it, about us. Told me that now that she was the Shaman of her tribe she had to make some choices. It wasn't just that her people looked down on her having an ongoing fling with me but that she'd have other obligations and stresses to deal with, and couldn't just up and drive six hours to meet me, or be as open to me just popping in whenever I felt like it. I knew that wasn't the whole story and made the mistake of pushing her on it.

Coyote isn't the type to hold back if you ask for the truth and I should have known better. She looked me straight in the eye and said that while the sex was great she was tired of being my port in a storm and not just physically. I'd gotten in the habit of hooking up with her when shit got too bad in my life and I couldn't handle it anymore. I'd either have to start giving some of that back, be willing to go where I didn't want to or end it. I had to admit, I'd called her a helluva a lot more than she called me. I started telling her what was going on, why I couldn't. She stopped me before I got two words out and said, "As long as you keep making the same choices for the same reasons you will always end up in the exact same spot. Alone." Then walked away. That was two years ago or so, we hadn't talked since. I still had her number though, still put what she'd given me all those years ago to help me sleep under my pillow. It was one of the things I'd used to try to fight the Mark. Somehow that little pouch had still managed to break through the nightmares every now and again. I didn't even know if her number would work but I scrolled to it, took a deep breath and sent her a quick text to tell her the number was mine and we needed her help on a job. I wasn't chickening out on calling, I just figured she might not answer an out of state number she didn't know. She called two seconds later.

"Hi." I figured that was a safe way to start, genius that I am.

She was all business, "What's going on?"

"Sam and I are looking at five bodies, what looks like Native American symbols henna tattoed on them, posed mimicking the symbols and left at each point of the compass and one in the middle." Facts are easy, I can do facts. "We're a little out of our depth so thought you could take a look. We think something big is being prepped. From what we can tell all the symbols point to death and destruction."

"Where are you?"

That was too business, even for her. Something was up, "Are you okay?"

"Dean, answer the question."

"Carbondale, Colorado. Red Roof Inn north of the city limits."

"I'll be there in six hours."

"And the reason you're already halfway here is?" There'd only be one reason she sounded like that and was so close.

"What do you think?"

"Vision?"

"Yes. Hit yesterday, I didn't get specifics on location of course but knew I had to head that way."

"Any hints you can give me?"

"My people technically don't believe in Apocalypses but if we did, this would be pretty close to that. On the bright side you don't have to deal with angels or demons."

"And on the not bright side?"

"You'll get to find out just how powerful a pissed off, misguided and corrupted shaman can be. Oh and if we screw this up, your people will get to suffer through what they did to us with a few horrific natural disasters thrown in for fun."

Gallows humor was familiar territory for us so I went with it, "Can I officially retire from anything end of the world related?"

"No. Cougar Kills Bears is with me."

Which meant it was probably worse than what she was saying. "We have a new guy with us, Roy Harper. He's a temp."

"A temp?"

"Yeah, Sam and I are offering classes for hunters now. You get the first hunt free as trial run, after that we charge $600 per credit hour."

Her laugh brought back everything I'd try to bury.

"Finally making an honest living?"

"Please, the rates colleges charge make loan sharks jealous. Do Sam and I need to get you anything?"

"Two rooms, singles, oh and dinner's on you. And no, I didn't bring pie from Take a Load Off. Wasn't sure you were involved till you called. Sorry."

She had to go there, that hurt. Not that she didn't bring the pie but that she'd remembered. It's been years since we'd stopped by there together. I had dropped in once or twice over the past few years and they still had the best food in the country. "I guess I'll forgive you this time." And let the awkward pause begin.

She broke it first, "See you in a few."

"Yeah. Drive safe."

"Always do."

She hung up, I didn't move, couldn't really. The rather large problem with facing your feelings, or being forced to, is that it's much harder to ignore them later on. Which was why I had maintained the practice of ignoring them as much as possible over the years. That was all shot to hell now. Coyote was something Sam and I had talked about up at Oliver's place. Actually he asked, I avoided answering, but since we'd agreed to not go on a job for a few weeks I couldn't actually avoid thinking about it, about her, about what could have been but most of all what she'd said. Making the same choices and always ending up alone. All that tied right in with Sam and I trying to do things differently. I was probably being an idiot anyway, she'd had years to hook up with someone else. I'd made my choice two years ago, so she could have moved on. Should have. Better have. I sure as hell didn't want to find out that she'd been single all this time, except that I kind of did. I hate emotional crap.


	8. Insanity Is

The door squeaked behind me, "Dean? What's up?"

I guess I took too long to shove that crap back to where it belonged, Sam's voice had that tone to it. Course these days I can't really blame him for riding my ass. "She's six hours out and it's turning into one of our usual jobs."

"That bad?"

"What else would you expect?"

"Shit."

I turned around. He was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, he'd taken his suit coat off and loosened his tie. His head twitched a bit in Roy's direction as his shoulders asked a question with a quick shrug.

"Up to him. He's here because he's pissed at Oliver making choices for him and I told you I'd do things different so..."

"Really?"

It was nice to know I could still surprise my brother from time to time. "Yeah." I pushed passed him and went back inside. "Roy? You got a choice to make. This job has gotten crappy, as in the shit that tends to end up with us either dead again, in Hell again or facing some stupid life or death choice. Usually I'd just tell someone like you to get the hell out and bail but you're an adult, you've faced plenty of your own crap and you know our story so you decide. I have to go grab two more rooms and make a beer run. Back in a few."

I grabbed Baby's keys as they both stared at me. Sam's jaw was almost to the ground, which is no mean feat. I think Roy was just shocked that someone had actually asked him what he wanted to do, instead of told him. Two things hit me while walking down the stairs, the first was how saying all that actually made me less stressed and the second was I was tired of shit like this. Sure, I'd gotten all restless back at Oliver's and yeah it'd felt good to be driving Baby again, starting a job, thinking it'd be easy. Show up, kill some vamps, save a few folks and move on. Stupid fucking fantasy. Three days out of the gate and we were right back in the thick of it and there was a part of me that didn't even care. Which is not a good way to go into a fight like this.

Apparently the twenty something lonely clerk that had been at the desk when Roy had checked in was gone. The guy that was there when I walked in barely smiled. He took my card and hooked me up with two rooms with nothing more than the usual questions asked. Which didn't bother me, I wasn't really in the mood to talk. I got back into Baby, turned the key and the music started. "Really? She's not even here yet and my radio's already talking to me."

 _"Desperado, oh you ain't gettin' no younger_  
 _Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home_  
 _And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'_  
 _Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone_

 _Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?_  
 _The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine_  
 _It's hard to tell the night time from the day_  
 _You're losin' all your highs and lows_  
 _Ain't it funny how the feelin' goes away?_

 _Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?_  
 _Come down from your fences, open the gate_  
 _It may be rainin' but there's a rainbow above you_  
 _You better let somebody love you_  
 _(Let somebody love you)_  
 _You better let somebody love you before it's too late"_

 _"_ Of all the damn songs Baby, you had to pick that one?" A crow landed on the hood, stared me right in the face and I swear it laughed at me before flying off. "Son of a bitch." I clicked the radio off and looked up, "If ya'll think that's going to help anything you really don't know me all that well. Instead of meddling in my lack of love life how about you do something useful and stop all this crap without me for once? Be a nice change of pace." The crow didn't return and nothing happened, "Yeah, that's what I thought. I wouldn't be in this mess if you gods, any of you, did what the hell you're supposed to."

It didn't take all that long to get to the nearest liquor store. Gas stations wouldn't have what I was looking for, beer wasn't going to cut it and I don't touch any hard liquor they sell. I may be an alcoholic but I do have taste. I had no idea where one actually was but drinking for as long as I have just look for the hints. The run down strip mall, beat up pavement, homeless people and that sense of desperation. Doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing they all look and somehow smell the same. It's a weird mix of dust, rarely used industrial grade cleaners and stale air. "Well Baby, another day, another liquor store and another world ending event. That's just great. What other choices am I supposed to make? Who the hell else would do this crap job?"

It probably says something about me that on long drives I'd come up with different voices Baby would have if she was a person, how she'd look. Not that I'd have sex with a car, even a car in person form but if anyone ever asked who I'd spent most of my time with it'd be her. I know the things I'd pretend she'd say in reply to my questions was just me thinking but I usually managed to tweak the reply into something funny or sex related, I couldn't even manage to do that. "Well this isn't good darlin'. I can't even make myself laugh."

I got to the store, walked in and didn't even have to look for what I wanted. I'd never been in this one before yet I knew exactly where everything was just by looking at the tops of the bottles. The guy behind the counter didn't even say a word other than the total, barely looked at me, bagged my crap and went back to looking at his phone. In theory I'd probably saved his life helping helping Sam stop Lucifer or when I killed Dick and the rest of the Leviathans or who knows, maybe his mom would have been attacked by vamps if I hadn't done my job. All those things used to matter to me, used to balance out all the shit we'd been through; the fact that I'd driven across the country more times then anyone in their right mind should, seen hundreds if not thousands of people yet most of them didn't have a damn clue as to who I really was or what I did. It used to. Right then, holding another bag of liquor what I wanted most was to be back on the dock at Oliver's place, fishing. I didn't even want to be home, because home meant I was hunting. Which was the last thing I wanted to be doing.

I was four blocks away from the liquor store heading back to the hotel and I didn't even remember getting back into Baby, which was bad. Running on auto pilot gets people killed. "All right, get back in the game or walk away. Pick one. Coyote's coming. Roy's an amateur but I know he's staying to see things through, he still cares. She'll need more than Sam and Cougar for back up. They'll need me and be real, when was the last time you had an easy job. Stop fucking deluding yourself, there are no easy jobs. Shut up, do your job and move on. It's what you do. Of course none of what I've just said is an actual choice, it's crappy ass convincing."

The entrance to the hotel parking lot was coming up and it took everything I had to turn Baby's wheel instead of driving past it. "You'll get them all killed. Is that what you want?" It was quiet, I'd turned Baby off and hadn't noticed. I was starting to think that when I'd told Sam I only had one fight left in me it wasn't just about fighting the Mark. "One more, get through one more. You gave Oliver your word nothing would happen to Roy. Suck it up."

I got the feeling that someone was watching me so I looked up through the windshield, Sam was standing on the balcony staring straight at me. "And now he knows. Shit. So much for doing things differently. Here's me, dragging myself into a fight when everything is telling me I shouldn't because I'm barely hanging on and there's him, worried but willing to back my play even when he knows I'm being an idiot. We both know better but we'll both do it anyway. Picture perfect examples of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

He started walking down the stairs, so I pulled my ass together and got out of Baby. I already knew what he was going to say, seeing as how this was the millionth or so time we'd had this conversation in one form or the other.

"Is Roy staying?" May as well start the ball rolling.

"Yes. Are you..?"

First one, didn't need to hear the whole thing "No."

He stopped walking, he hadn't expected that. Usually I lie. "Do you..?"

"No." Next. I just stood in front of him, waiting.

"Then why?"

"You don't need to hear the reasons, you know why."

He started getting pissed, "So, not doing things differently after all then."

"Yeah I am, I just told you the truth instead of lying, I gave Roy a choice. Should we bail on him, leave Coyote on her own?"

"Of course not, we don't have to bail. You can back out, I'll stay. I'm not attached to your hip, I can do things without you. Your head's not in this Dean. That's when you and I both make stupid choices."

"Sam, I don't bail on people. I'll be fine when the time comes."

"Really? You've bailed plenty of times. Just not physically." He yanked the bag out of my arms. I was kind of surprised he didn't shove me as pissed and frustrated as he was. "Get your head straight. I won't back your play this time if it means watching you go back down that path again. If you don't want in, don't be in. No one is going to give you shit about it, not me, not Roy, not Coyote. Figure out why you want to do this because if you don't have a why you won't have a reason to fight. If you can't fight you don't need to be on a job. Especially one like this."

He turned to walk off then his head dropped down and his shoulders slumped forward and he looked at me over his shoulder. All that anger was gone, replaced with a desperate pleading look. He knew what my usual reasons for doing things usually resulted in. "If you don't care about saving people, then why do this? I don't need saving, neither does Coyote. We know what's out there, the people that need saving are the ones who don't. They're the ones we're doing this for, or at least they should be. Back to basics. Think about it."


	9. Cloudy Days and Times Gone By

He watched me for another second or two then headed up the stairs. It wasn't just my head that wasn't in this and he knew it. Sure, I could go up those stairs, push through it, pretend, but what would that accomplish? There was an open field across from the hotel and I needed to think, needed a walk. I thought the month at Oliver's had made some great change in me. We'd had a blast, talked a lot of shit through, been brothers again like he'd said. It'd felt good, too good but it hadn't really fixed me. I really didn't know what could fix me or if I was even worth fixing.

I checked for cars, none were coming, crossed the street, walked about half way into the field and came across a flat topped boulder. It was one of those days when the sun pops in and out of the clouds every five or ten minutes, there was a soft breeze and I kept getting whiffs of whatever plants or weeds were blooming in the field. For some reason the top of that boulder seemed like the best place to be, to sit and think so I did just that. "Huh, last time I was sitting on a rock was that day she and I drove to get pie. Now that was a good day, one of the best really. Screw it, it's a cheap suit anyway." I leaned back, laid down, put my hands under my head and closed my eyes.

Back to basics huh? Years ago I used to still check in on people that we'd saved. The ones we'd gotten names and numbers for anyway. I didn't go talk to them or anything, no point to bringing back all those memories for them, I just wanted to know they were still okay, still fine. I'd hang out across the street from their house, watch the kids walk home, maybe catch a glimpse of them outside. It sounds creepy now that I think about it but back then it kept me going. They were standing on that street laughing or whatever because I stopped a monster. That was my job and I was damn good at it. I really didn't need anything else. Funny thing about saving the entire world though, the world doesn't actually know you saved it. You don't get hugs from grateful parents or kids, the world just goes on like nothing happened, because technically nothing did. You get up the morning after you saved the world sore, tired and empty. You'd think you'd wake up the next morning feeling great, but you don't. You're too busy dealing with whatever sacrifice you had to make to keep the damn thing running. No one knows, no one cares. You walk out on the street, no one says a damn thing to you because they don't know how close they came. You tell yourself that you did a good thing then you drive by the ashes of the house you grew up in and wonder if it really was. You build another pyre, bury another friend and tell yourself this is what they would have wanted, that you made the right choice. You go on. Another fire, another body, another retelling of the same thing, till you have no one left. Nothing left.

Back to basics huh? No matter what I was going to do in the next hour or so I had to have some sort of reason. So, what is it? Why should I get up off this rock and keep going? When Sam and I fought the Mark, saving him was the only thing I was holding on to. Not killing him, not letting the last member of my family down. It was the last thing I had but Sam didn't need me to save him, hadn't in years. Hell, I was the reason he'd needed saving in the first place. I could have found Dad on my own but I was too afraid I'd fuck it up somehow, I always screw everything up anyway. Anything big. So, if my reason for existing isn't to protect my brother what is it? Why am I really still breathing? It's really scary when you ask questions like that and don't have an answer.

A cloud passed over the sun, must have because it got darker. The night we did that sweat, seeing exactly what was in store for me in Hell came back to me. Feeling every cut, every burn, every lash almost a year before it would happen. I wanted to run so bad, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere a hellhound wouldn't find me. I staggered out of Rising Dove's house after he fell asleep on the couch. It wasn't his fault, guy was in his sixties and had just pulled off an entire sweat ceremony. All I knew was I had to get out, try to get rid of what I was seeing in my head. I still don't know how I'd made it to Coyote's place but I barely made it up the stairs to her room. She was sleeping and sleeping hard. I didn't really want to wake her up, throw my shit on her but she must have felt me somehow. She didn't say anything, just pulled the covers back and let me collapse, pulled me back from the edge. She told me that I was still alive, we were still alive. That the vision hadn't happened yet, we still had time.

It got brighter on my eyelids, the cloud must have moved. I still had time, was still alive. No matter how dead I felt inside I was still here, far past the point where I should be but that wasn't the point. I saw them all again, Jo, Ellen, Bobby, Mom, Dad. All their faces seemed so clear. Maybe I couldn't find a reason to fight for myself but that didn't change the fact that I owed them something. They'd all put their faith in me, God knows why, but they had. Sam had too, over and over, so was Roy and Coyote. No matter how many times I'd fucked up they still trusted me to pull through somehow and do the right thing. Right now the right thing was stopping an evil shaman. After that, well that'd be a whole other conversation but I had a reason, at least for this fight. The world didn't stop, there was no crazy feeling of enlightenment but I felt better, back in the game. Or at least back enough.

I got up, dusted myself off, walked back across the street and opened the door to the room. Sam was looking at his laptop, his back towards the door and Roy was scrolling through his phone. Roy looked up first, there was no judgement on his face, no questions, he just gave me a level look.

"So, let's gank an evil shaman."

Sam spun around, half a smile on his face. Once he got a good look at me he relaxed and the smile reached his eyes. "Sounds like a plan. Next move?"

"We got a few hours to kill, how about we go intimidate a medical examiner?"

"Not a bad idea."

My brain felt clearer, like I was firing on most of my cylinders again. "He's obviously covering for something, let's find out what. I'm tired of being in this damn suit anyway."

"You guys want me to come or stay here and research?" Roy offered. It wasn't too hard to pickup on the fact that I'd been having issues and he was offering a neat way for Sam and I to have some time alone. We didn't need it though, this was all on me. Nothing Sam could do would help.

"Never hurts to have an extra set of ears and eyes. Come if you want."

"All right."

"Don't change yet," Sam said.

"Aww man..."

"Take Baby, go to the morgue see if the ME is still there. If he is, call me and we'll take Roy's car to his house and meet you there. I tracked it down but don't want to risk a break in without knowing if he's there or not."

"Since when has that ever stopped us?"

"Yeah, but we have a second car and a third person, may as well put all that to good use."

"Good point. If he's not there?"

"We'll figure that out later I'm thinking we may want to go check out one of the places a body was dumped see if we can get any other clues as to who's behind it."

"Could be fun. Okay, call you in a few."

"Dean?" Roy asked, "I'd rather come with you, see what you guys do there. If that's okay. Sam can still use my car if he needs to."

It'd been Sam's plan so he's the one who should have the say on that, "Sam?"

"Works for me. I'll just chill here till you let me know where the ME is. You kids have fun." He stopped talking but there were so many more comments he wanted to say. By the way he was trying not to crack up laughing I figured they all had to do with Roy, women and my advancing age.

"Roy, go change, I'll wait in the car." I turned around but not before I heard a snicker from Sam. I waited until Roy had walked through the bathroom to his room, "You know Sam, you're the one getting the short end of the stick on this job, Roy gets the young chicks, I get chicks our age, not sure who that leaves you. Maybe the old ones? You did get attacked by a bunch of them a few jobs back. Remember that case we did in the mansion? The one with the fake cross that got left to Bobby?"

"Shut up."

I shot him the most obnoxiously smug grin I could, winked and left him muttering to himself. Sure younger brothers plot, but older brothers will still always win in the end. It's the extra years of experience. Roy showed up a few minutes later, we piled into Baby and took off. We went a block or two, I still had a shit eating grin on my face from my parting comment to Sam when Roy spoke up.

"Hey Dean?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not going to ask about whatever's been bugging you, not my place. I just wanted to say that, well.."

"Are you already violating the no chick flick moment rule?"

He stopped talking, I don't think he realized I was joking. "Sorry, joking."

"Oh, just how you dealt with it, that's what I wish Oliver would do more. Sam didn't say anything about what happened but it was pretty obvious you guys had a serious talk. Whenever we try to talk to Oliver, he never seems to take time to really listen and think about what we're saying. That's all."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, "Well, even the most hard headed people get things eventually. People like Oliver and I just need to have our heads bashed repeatedly into brick walls sometimes first. Give Oliver a few more end of the world situations, he'll get it eventually. Maybe we can draft him into hunting for awhile. Sam and I will hang back, let you two do all the hard work. We can start a business, Vigilante Counseling Retreats, learn teamwork and effective leadership skills while fighting demons." I honestly thought Roy was going to die laughing.


	10. Instincts

He managed to get himself mostly under control by the time we got to the ME's office. "You good? I didn't think it was that funny."

He snorted, chuckled a few more times then stopped smiling. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Well, let's see what he's hiding." We parked, got out and opened the doors to the place. Morgues, like liquor stores, all start to look the same after a few years. I guess there's only so many ways you can configure a place around holding dead bodies. The people that work at a morgue usually aren't too much into interior design and the people the work on tend not to complain about the wall color, being dead and all.

Whoever worked in this one must be an outdoorsy type even though they work in a basement, there were a few potted plants scattered around and a vase of fake flowers. I thought that made it feel like a funeral home, not liven the place up but who am I to judge.

We rounded a corner and heard a rather cranky female voice. I ducked back around the corner, Roy followed me and we waited. Eavesdropping usually pays off.

"I don't know why he had to go. He just called, said he had a family emergency and was gone before I even got here. I checked the video logs since he's always too lazy to log visitors in the book and some tall guy in a suit, probably a fed was here right before he bailed. No! Of course there's no record! God I hope they don't come back around. I don't know what happened to the guy. He used to be on top of things, now he's never here, misses shit and makes my life a living hell. Yeah, okay. I'll try to be home for dinner. Love you too."

Roy's eyebrows were up when he looked at me, I gave him a quick nod and walked around the corner. She had her back to the hallway, black hair tied up in a bun, the usual white coat on, was in fitted slacks that showed off her legs and was barely five feet tall. "Excuse us ma'am. We're with the FBI and have some questions."

She turned around, her face was average looking and aggravated, "Of course you are. As if I don't have enough crap to deal with today. What do you need?"

I gave her a quick smile, which just seemed to irritate her more so I went back to business face, "We'd like to look at the bodies of Simon Harris and Teresa Spencer if we could. My partner was here earlier and noticed some irregularities between the autopsy photos and the bodies."

"Not surprising, Jim did those two and he's been slacking lately. I'm Susan, and you are?"

She didn't take too long to throw him under the bus, she must really hate the poor guy. "Agents Ragsdale and Henderson." We flashed her our badges, she nodded, led us to the storage units and pulled open two drawers.

"Here you go. Let me grab the files and we can straighten this out." She walked away.

Simon was closest to us so I started with him. "Yeah, those aren't vamp bites at all. Damn." He had an incision, not knife wounds but a surgical style cut over where his kidney would be which stood out in pretty obvious contrast to the bites and tears all over the rest of him. "Someone worked damn hard to make sure this looked natural but Sam's right, nothing on him looks like a mountain lion had him for lunch. There'd be a lot less left of him if that was the case. Let's look at Teresa." Roy was starting to look a little green but he stayed didn't back down. Teresa was more of the same but she the incision was closer to her liver.

A file drawer slammed shut and I could hear Susan walking back and judging from the sounds of her footsteps she was not too happy. I looked up from Teresa's body and knew exactly was going to come out of her mouth. She didn't have any folders in her hand and was trying to keep the fear of future unemployment off her face. "I'm sorry Agents, the files don't seem to be here."

"Really? Not even in your computers? How about the files from the other bodies that came in like this earlier this month?"

She shook her head but her eyes widened. "These two aren't in the system, let me check the others."

We followed her back to the desk area, "When did Jim start working here?"

"Three months ago, he came with good references, seemed normal. Then about six weeks ago he starts acting weird." She'd started searching the system for the other three.

"Weird how?" Roy asked.

"Late, leaving early, calling in sick. Then his work started slipping. Just weird. What the? They're not here, pretty sure they won't be in the filing cabinet either but I'll check. What is he thinking?"

"That's not good," Roy muttered.

"Nope. Damn." I pulled out my phone, texted the updates to Sam just as Susan came back empty handed again, jaw clenched and her earlier fears of not having a job seemed to have faded into straight up anger.

"I'm going to have to report this. What irregularities did the other Agent notice?"

"The incisions over where the liver and kidneys would be. Any chance we can open them back up and see if they still have all their parts?"

"Of course." She shoved her emotions back down and grabbed a pair of gloves.

We got the bodies on the tables and she went to work. "I just got back from maternity leave last week," she explained while slicing into Simon's body, "And it's been one thing after another. There was supposed to be another guy covering my shifts, someone from out of town. He would have had to sign off on the autopsies so I have no idea how this happened."

When she shoved her hand into Simon's stomach area looking for organs I thought Roy was going to lose it but he looked away, took a few deep breaths and held on. Susan didn't seem to notice. I've always found it interesting how people like Roy and I are more repulsed by blood and guts in a clinical setting then out in the field. It doesn't get to me anymore but it took a lot longer to get used to it than it did chopping off heads or blasting holes into something's chest. Hell, it's less disturbing stitching up our wounds than watching an autopsy. There's something about seeing everything that should be inside a person getting pulled out, set on trays, weighed and measured. It strips away the humanity of a person I guess, reduces them to parts, numbers, a series of things carefully documented and filed away. It's an emotionless process, cold, there's no adrenaline to get you past it. You just sit there and watch a person get dismantled then put back together.

Susan dug around inside of Simon for a minute and froze, "Kidney's gone. I'm going to have to do another autopsy, same with Teresa. It will take an hour or two. Do you want me to call you when I'm done?"

Well things just went from not good, to very bad. "Yes please. I'll put my card on the table. Why did you guys need to hire Jim? Someone quit or get promoted?"

"No, the person who was here before him died in his sleep. Heart just stopped." I saw her start making some connections she really didn't seem to want to make. "Do you think...?"

"Sort of our job to think like that. If Teresa's missing organs call me."

"I, I.. of course." Then the shock started to sink in. She was probably thinking some sort of black market organ stealing operation, which would be a lot better than what was really going on.

"Thanks."

Roy followed me out then cut hard right into the men's room, I was pretty impressed he'd made it that long. I gave him a minute than went in to check on him, "First autopsy I take it?" He staggered out of one of the stalls, I handed him some damp paper towels to wipe his mouth off with.

He put his hand on his stomach, bent slightly over and closed his eyes. "Yes."

"Deep breaths, it helps. Get some water after your stomach stops trying to shove it's way up your throat."

Once he grabbed the towels from me, wiped his face off and grabbed a drink from the sink he looked a little less sick. "Sorry."

"No problem, we've all puked at least once. Let me call Sam while you get your breath back." He gave me a weak nod, I hit the button to call Sam.

"Hey."

"Hey, your hunch was right. Simon was missing his kidney. The ME you saw, Jim? Wiped all the records, snagged the files and bailed. We talked to a chick named Susan, the usual ME I guess. Apparently Jim's not all that bright he called her in to cover for him. Anyway, Susan is going to check out Teresa too and call me back. She has to do a whole new autopsy. Jim started about three months ago, last six weeks he's been a pain in the ass employee. Late to work, screwing things up, calling in sick. The guy that worked there before him mysteriously died in his sleep. No known cause."

He didn't seemed too surprised. "Guess we're meeting at Jim's house?"

"Yeah. Hey do you have a pic of the guy you can send so we know who we're looking for."

"Yup, I'll shoot you the link and bring the picks."

"Cool, see you there."

My phone beeped, Sam had sent a link to a newspaper article about the recent killings and there was a shot of Jim on the crime scene on the website. His name was listed as James Garcia but I doubted that was his real name and not just for obvious reasons. Coyote used to complain when people thought she was Mexican or some other race and I'd been around enough of her people to spot the differences. James wasn't Mexican, he was Native American. I didn't know which tribe but it didn't really matter. "Heads up he's Native." I texted to Sam.

"Got it." Was his reply followed by an address.

I held my phone up so Roy could see the screen, "This is our guy. He's Native. Not sure he's who we're looking for but he should have some answers."

"We're heading to his house then?"

"Yup. Stomach back where it should be?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Let's roll then."

We met Sam about thirty minutes later in front of Jim's house. Jim lived on a cul de sac, in a two story house that sat back a bit from the road. It was surrounded by a block fence that limited vision from the street. Sam got out of Roy's car, slid into Baby's back seat and started filling us in. "The house backs up to a flood control channel which is conveniently located in front of a forested area. I saw some sort of off road bike tracks going from the house to the woods that look fairly new. What I could see through the windows makes me think he's not home. It's pretty bare inside. I figured I'd wait for you before I went in. I did see an alarm company sign right next to the door though."

"Guess we're cutting some wires."

"Hold on Dean," Roy said, "Let me take a look around first. Maybe there's a different way in then the front door."

"Knock yourself out, we'll cover you."

We all got out, walked across the street and Roy jogged around the side. I signaled to Sam to watch the front and I followed Roy, more out of curiosity then any real concern he'd get jumped. I didn't think anyone was in the house either. As Roy worked his way down the side of the house he kept his eyes trained on the second story windows. He hopped the fence that separated the front and backyards instead of bothering to unlock the gate. I wasn't sure if he was showing off or just in that mode but I'm sure Thea would have been thrilled to know just how he was treating the suit she'd bought him. I went through the gate because I am that lazy.

He pointed to the window above the porch roof, "It's open."

"And?"

"If it's open it's not alarmed." He backed up a few feet, pulled off his suit coat and hung it over the back of a chair, ran, grabbed the edge of the porch roof, pulled himself up and walked to the window. Yup, he'd definitely learned a thing or two from Oliver. "Coming?"

"How about you scope out the house and check for alarms on the doors and windows downstairs?"

"Why? This is already open. Can't you do a pull up?"

He didn't even bother to try to hide the smirk on his face. Show off. "Fine." I pulled off a less graceful version of what he'd done, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it. He popped off the screen and pushed aside the curtains and we crawled into an empty room. The brown carpet still had those streaks in it after the super deep clean realtors do when they're selling a house, the off white walls were bare and the paint seemed new. There was no furniture, nothing to make you think someone lived here. I had my gun out as soon as my feet hit the floor, something didn't feel right. I motioned for Roy to check the door out of the room and I worked my way to the closet.

Roy turned the knob, "Not locked," he whispered. I pulled open the closet door, it was empty too.

"Hold up." I dialed Sam again.

"Yeah?"

"Second floor window in the back was open. Roy and I are inside. Keep an eye out in case anyone shows up."

"Sure thing."

I realized I had no idea if Roy had a gun or even knew how to use one, dumb move on my part. "Weapons?"

He rolled up his left sleeve, there was a brace of darts strapped to his forearm, "Knockout darts. I don't use guns too much, you know how Oliver is."

"Right. Here." I handed him my backup knife. "I'll take point."

He nodded, took the knife, counted to three and pulled the door open. I cased the hallway, we were at the end and I spotted the stairs down at the other end of the hall. No one was in view. I paced down the hall, Roy barely made any noise as he followed. We heard a bang like a door slamming shut from downstairs and froze. Next thing we heard was papers being shuffled and books hitting a counter or the floor. I motioned to Roy to keep moving. I got close enough to the second floor landing to look over the rail and down to the ground floor. Jim had his back to us and seemed to be getting ready to torch a bunch of paper work. Before I could say a word Roy stepped around me and his arm flashed in my peripheral vision. Jim grunted, grabbed his neck, spun around and was about to say something when his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped.

"What's on those things?"

"Horse tranquilizer with something extra that Felicity found. I have no idea what it is."

"Nice shot by the way. I didn't expect him to be here."

"Yeah. Looks like he isn't really planning to make a permanent home here."

There was no furniture in the kitchen either. We made our way down the stairs and spotted three folding chairs and a card table in the living room and that was it.

"No food in the fridge," Roy said.

"This is a cover for him. Alarm's not even armed." I pulled open the front door. Sam was standing about ten feet away facing the street. The sound of the door opening got him moving though. He whipped around, drew his gun and had it pointed at me "Hi there."

"Jerk, you could have said something."

"Not as fun. Come on in."


	11. Arrivals

"What happened to him?" Sam asked when he spotted Jim flat on the floor.

"Roy's arm and Felicity powered tranq juice."

He spotted the dart in Jim's neck, "Nice shot. How long will he be out for?"

Roy pulled the dart out, capped it with a small piece of plastic he pulled off the bottom of the dart case that was wrapped around his wrist and stuck it in his pocket. "An hour, two at the most."

"Good, gives us time to look around, not that there's much to look at."

"Except the other three autopsy reports," Sam corrected, "Did you make sure no one else was here?"

"Taking care of that now, you read. Roy and I will be right back."

I took the garage and lower floor, Roy took upstairs but the place was clean. The garage had a Ford Focus in it but nothing else, I found the room where Jim had thrown an air mattress on the floor and a pile of clothes along with a laptop and that was it. There was one roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, a tooth brush, toothpaste and that was it. No cleaning supplies, no razors, nothing. None of which made any sense since he was listed as renting the place. I grabbed his laptop,it was on but sitting at the password protected screen. Hopefully Sam could crack it.

"What'd you find?" I asked Roy when we met back up at by Sam.

"Nothing. No clothes, nothing in the bathroom, just empty rooms."

"Even hunters don't live this bare. What the hell?"

"Guys," Sam muttered, "The other three bodies have more tats, none of them good things either. I found more photos, pre photoshopped. Not sure why he printed them out but it looks like these people are probably missing a heart, spleen and either another kidney or something in that area."

"Great. Okay I'll go grab the rope to make sure Jim can't go anywhere when he wakes up and call Coyote. See what she says." I headed out the front door while listening to Coyote's phone ring in my ear. It took four rings and it wasn't her voice that started talking.

"Dean, what's up?" Cougar asked.

"Cougar? Is everything all right?"

"Yes. I'm driving, she's sleeping. Why are you calling?"

That in itself was weird, that vision must have taken a lot out of her. "Oh okay. We got more info on the bodies. They're missing assorted parts that this guy named Jim who was working as the ME seems to have covered up. Jim's Native, we're at his place. He's knocked out for a few hours, his house is a cover, there's barely any furniture in it. The ME before Jim got the job three months ago just up and died in his sleep. Jim got the job, six weeks ago he started working his way towards the worst employee of the month award. He cleaned out the files at the morgue and was about to torch the hard copies but we stopped him. Found more tats on the other corpses, Sam says none of them are anything good. Figured I'd check in with you guys to see where we go next." It took Cougar way too long to reply.

"What's missing?"

"We know at least one kidney for sure, probably a heart, liver and spleen."

"This Jim, tie him up, gag him, cover his eyes." He wasn't suggesting. He was ordering. "Try to keep him from hearing you as well. We will be there as soon as we can."

"Care to fill me in on what's going on? We're kind of flying blind here."

"We won't be sure until she sees him."

"Uh huh, that's why both of you are coming here, not just her. Cougar, I know I haven't been around for a few years but I know she's spooked about something. She's not usually this tight lipped about things."

"You are right, you have not been here and you have no concept of how she does things now." There was a not so subtle hint of disgust in his voice, and I was pretty sure the disgust wasn't aimed at her. "Do not assume you know her anymore. Do what I said and wait."

"Fine. How far out are you?"

"We've been pushing it so about three hours. Fortunately the police haven't been around. We will have to slow down once we get closer."

"We'll try to keep him asleep until then."

"That is probably the safest thing to do." He hung up. Cougar and Coyote went way back, best friends their whole lives. He'd never seemed to have any issues with me before, although I hadn't spent a ton of time with him. He'd come over for dinner a few times when I'd spent time with her but it had always gone well enough. I knew he was a pretty level headed guy so for him to sound like that he had to be pretty damn pissed, which meant I'd hurt her a lot more than I'd wanted to admit. Damn it. It also sounded like whatever she'd had to deal with after Rising Dove died and she became shaman hadn't been easy either. I didn't have any choice back then, Sam and I were dealing with our own crap. I just wish that made me feel like less of a jerk. Nothing I can do about it now. I gathered the rope up, closed Baby's trunk and went back inside.

"So?" Sam asked.

"Tie him up, gag him, cover his eyes, keep him knocked out and wait. Coyote was sleeping, talked to Cougar. He said they won't know more till she looks at him."

"We can send her a picture," Roy pointed out.

I rolled Jim over and stacked his wrists on top of each other. "I have a feeling the way she needs to see him has nothing to do with how he physically looks. I think she needs to see his spirit, or aura, or whatever."

"What?"

I suddenly understood how Coyote must feel trying to explain being a Shaman to white people. "She can see all that. They call it seeing your Warrior Spirit, Asians call it your chi others call it prana or your soul. Whatever energy it is that psychics can see, it's that."

"Oh." He didn't look all that convinced.

"Trust us, souls are real things," Sam said, "And you should do everything you can to keep yours where it is."

"Uh, wasn't planning to give it away."

"Good. Don't." I'd tied Jim's hands and feet so I rolled him back over and wrapped a bandanna around his eyes and another one across his mouth. "Let's shove him into a closet just in case. Roy, dose him up again in ninety minutes. They should be here in three hours or so. Guess we may as well get some food in the meantime. I have a feeling we may not get to once she gets here."

"I'll go pick something up," Roy offered. "I want to change out of this anyway if things are going to get more serious."

"Good idea. Hate to make you the pack mule again but.."

"Yeah, I'll grab your bags. What do you want for food?"

"Thanks." I pulled some cash out of my wallet. "Sam?"

"Burger, fries, Coke. The usual."

"Cool. Same here. You fly I buy."

He took the cash, took his keys from Sam and walked out.

"He thinks fast on his feet. I didn't tell him to knock Jim out, he just moved."

"He wouldn't have made it this long teamed up with Oliver if he didn't."

"True. Anything else in this pile of stuff that's useful?"

"Not sure yet. Grab some papers and start looking."

I sorted through some of the papers, "Probably be easier if they were written in English. Here's Jim's laptop by the way."

"You try to translate the papers, I'll crack Jim's laptop.

"Fun." I pulled Sam's laptop closer and went to work. Roy showed back up some time later with food, I put him in charge of keeping an eye on Jim and then spent the next few hours trying working through the papers. About two hours in Sam threw his hands up in frustration. "I got in but everything on here is written in the same language the papers are."

"It's Navajo I think." I told him. "Only language that seems to make sense. What I have translated is pretty disturbing."

"Why?"

"Looks like Jim here was part of a group that seems to think it's time the Natives got revenge on us white folk. Which Coyote already told me but the creepy part is how they're planning to do it. In theory they want to resurrect all the souls of the Natives that were killed since we started trying to wipe them out and send them at us. An undead army but not zombies. We're talking vengeful spirits on steroids, thousands of them."

Roy looked at me like I was slightly nuts, "People can do that?"

"Yes, they can."

"Who the hell is that strong to summon that many spirits?" Sam asked.

"I'm getting the feeling it's not so much a summoning as it is shredding whatever veil the Natives believe in and just letting the spirits come through."

"Oh. Yeah, that would make more sense."

"I'm sorry, how does that make more sense?"

"You didn't go over ghosts with him? Seriously Sam?"

"We thought we were hunting vamps remember?"

"Vamps are a five second explanation. If something comes at you hissing with rows of teeth, cut it's head off. Not complicated."

"Uh huh...okay I'll just ignore all the other important stuff you just jumped over. Topic at hand." He closed Jim's laptop and looked at Roy, "There are multiple other realms out there, divided by veils or walls or whatever metaphor works for you. Summoning spirits requires some serious focus on who you are summoning, you have to pull them out through the veil to you that's assuming you have the psychic energy to get through the veil to them in the first place. However, ripping the veil takes a different kind of thought process. You're not trying to contact one specific thing, you're just opening a hole. Think about it like this, instead of shooting an arrow through a hole in the wall you just use one of Oliver's exploding arrowheads and blow the wall up."

It took Roy a minute or two but he got it, "It makes sense as to it being easier. How does whoever is ripping the veil know they'll get vengeful Native spirits and not just some random spirits that happen to be in the area?"

"Good question," Sam said. "They usually have something that will lure the spirits they need. A focal point to attract them."

"And a bunch of dead white people would attract vengeful Native American spirits. Wait..." I dug through the papers and found one that listed a bunch of names, it was one of the few that was in English. "Especially if the white people are distant relatives of the people that massacred them back in the day. Look."

"Custer?"

"Oh yeah," Cecilia Cartwright, girl with no heart now was apparently a great, great, great, grand niece of Custer's and Simon was related to a James Forstyth, the guy in charge of the calvary that pulled off the Wounded Knee Massacre. I knew that one because of Coyote. There were others I didn't recognize the names of but Sam and Roy seemed to.

Sam's face hit that mode he gets when the crap we were in reached monumentally catastrophic instead of just our everyday disasters. "I really hope Coyote knows how to stop this. I don't even know if our usual stuff would work on these spirits if they got out. Different beliefs usually mean different weaknesses."

"I know." My phone rang, it was her. "Hi. So your evil shaman wants to release a bunch of pissed off spirits of your people to take out mine using distant relatives of Custer and others as a focus. And the reason you didn't tell us that was?" I have a habit of getting a bit short tempered when faced with things like this.

Sam had smacked his forehead with his palm before I even finished talking, "Dude, c'mon!"

"The reason, jackass," she snapped back," Was because I didn't know all the damn details. Visions don't come with a table of contents, references and a genealogy section. Care to start this conversation over?"

Well that hadn't changed, she still spoke her mind. That made me feel better in a weird way. "Sorry, we just put it together. Shouldn't have snapped at you. Okay, starting over. Hi, what's up?"

"That's better," she replied. "We need your address. Cougar tells me you're at some guy's place that's involved in this."

"Yeah. I'll text it to you. You said dinner's on me. Want me to get you something now or later?"

"We ate already, thanks for asking. We're about thirty minutes away from Carbondale. Text the address. See you soon." She hung up.

I was getting a little tired of being hung up on without any warning. I texted her the address. "They'll be here in thirty. Let's organize this crap so she can look through it when she gets here."

We sorted everything into piles and about fifteen minutes in I started getting this weird feeling, my palms were all sweaty and I kept looking at my watch. I was nervous, of all the damn things to be nervous about I was nervous about seeing her again. What am I? Sixteen. There was a knock at the door, "I'll get it." If I was walking faster than usual it was just because we needed to stop the evil shaman, really. I pulled the door open and two things jumped out at me, the first was Cougar was damn near hovering over her and the second was the sense of power that hit me, and it was coming from her. I've been around a lot of powerful things, angels, witches, demons ,whatever and have developed sort of Spidey sense about it. Psychics would say I was a "sensitive", I just call it a survival skill. Either way, when I'm around things or people that have supernatural power I tend to pick up on it and she'd never felt like this before. She had shaman blood in her, that I knew, but not even Rising Dove had hit me like this and he was an experienced shaman, she was still pretty new to the gig. "Uh hi." I'm sure that covered my reaction perfectly.

She smiled, "Hi."

We stood there for a second, "You look good." Yeah, I was winning tons of points back.

"Thanks, you too." She took a step forward, making me move to the side and walked past me, Cougar followed on her heels. "Hey Sam, you must be Roy."

Which left me at the door, feeling like an idiot. I shut the door and watched her walk right up to Sam and give him a huge hug. He shot me an apologetic look over her shoulder as he hugged her back. He couldn't really refuse her hug but he knew how I felt. I couldn't be mad at him or her, but damn did it hurt like hell.


	12. Wishful Thinking

She shook Roy's hand, "Nice to meet you, this is Cougar Kills Bears, Cougar for short."

Roy looked a little intimidated by Cougar, not that I blame him. Cougar makes Sam look small and he was all business. His full head of waist length black hair was down, he was wearing a short sleeve black shirt, a vest and black jeans. You didn't need any imagination to see how ripped he was, he had a huge Bowie knife strapped to his waist on the left and another blade tied to his right thigh. The worst part was his face, totally empty. If I didn't know the guy I would have pegged him for a stone cold killer but he wasn't, or hadn't been anyway.

Now that I was over the initial shock of how she felt and being burned at the front door I took another look at her. Whatever she'd been through the last few years had hardened her, given her rough edges that she'd never had before. Her hair was braided as usual but there were several feathers attached to the braids, she was in her standard hunter look. Black t-shirt and jeans but she was wearing knee high moccasins instead of work boots. They were brown and heavily beaded and she had a lot more accessories than usual. There were three necklaces around her neck, one had some sort of quartz pendant that was wrapped with silver, one was a small black pouch that had some pretty complex beadwork on it and the other was a several gemstones all clustered together held together by bronze and sliver wire. The largest stone was a piece of jet black obsidian with something small etched on it that I couldn't quite make out. She still wore the armband with the silver coyote on it and several pouches hung from her belt. One long knife hung from her left hip and I saw the hilt of a knife poking up above her right boot. She'd gained some more muscle, leaned down which told me she'd been training or fighting a lot more than before which worried me although I didn't know why. I knew she was more than capable of handling anything that came her way.

"Nice to meet you," Roy said as he shook both their hands. She gave him a quick smile then looked back at me and time stopped. Her eyes drew me in and I felt dizzy. The neutral look she'd given me when she'd walked in slipped on her face for a second, all I saw was pain and I wasn't sure if it was hers or mine. She lowered her eyes and turned towards Sam. "So catch me up."

I felt like I was swimming in a whirlpool and took a few steps into the hall until it faded. She'd done the shaman thing on me, checked my warrior spirit out. How I was feeling now was pretty damn close to how I felt when Rising Dove had done it years ago. I knew how little of me was left, I had no idea how she perceived it but that look told me enough. Even if I'd wanted to try to fix things somehow, there was no way I could. What the hell did I have to offer her or anyone for that matter. I had barely enough left to get me through a day, much less be supportive of anyone else. The world finally stopped spinning after another minute or two. I had a job to do, that's what I had to think about, not something that I threw away years ago. I pushed off the wall I was leaning on and walked back into the living room. Sam was just finishing up explaining the autopsies and the relationships between everyone. I grabbed the last beer from the case that Roy had bought, popped it open and stood next to Roy. "Fun stuff huh?"

I'm not sure how she looked more solemn than Cougar but she pulled it off somehow. "Where's Jim?"

"Follow me." She nodded and I led her to the laundry room where we'd stashed him. "Roy's kept him dosed up with tranquilizers so he's not up to answering questions."

I heard her pull her knife, "Won't need to."

"Whoa, wait. What's the knife for?"

"I'm not killing him. Who do you think I am?"

"Not sure, it's been a few years and both of you have been playing this pretty close to the chest. We shared, your turn."

She debated that for a minute, I'd really missed watching her face. She's not someone that most guys would go for, she never liked it when I told her she was hot because she didn't think she was. Yeah sure, she wasn't a curvy ass, blonde model type but that didn't make her any less attractive. I couldn't even say I was attracted to her because she was exotic looking, I'd never gone specifically for that either. There was just something about who she was, how she carried herself that had kept me coming back. I'd been around other hunter chicks, and they all had similar traits, sort of had to to survive the job and the guys hitting on you all the time but somehow that never seemed to touch her. Maybe it was because she hadn't grown up in the life, she'd had a career and a damn good one before she hunted. Still had for all I knew. She wasn't as bitter and cynical as the rest of us, that seemed to have changed though.

"Let me take a look at his chest. I need to confirm something."

"Well he's wearing a button down shirt and is knocked out so you can put the blade away."

"It's not for stabbing him, it may end up saving him. If this is what I think it is he's a victim in this, not the main problem."

I blocked the door, "Coyote, spill. You know I don't like to go into things blind."

Coyote doesn't narrow her eyes when she gets mad; she tenses up her jaw and starts cocking her right arm back, which usually isn't a problem but at that particular moment she was holding a rather large, sharp knife. "And just like last time we had a situation like this you have to trust me. My world, my rules. Now move."

"No."

"I swear to God Dean, this isn't the time to mark territory or play the white knight. Move or I'll move you."

Sam and Roy had their eyes fixed on us and Cougar had taken two steps closer. It was time to back down, I didn't need to start a blood bath. "Fine."

She relaxed, I turned the knob and moved out of her way. I watched as she unbuttoned the top three buttons and pulled his shirt down. There was some sort of grotesque brand over his heart, she pulled back the minute she saw it. "Damn it. Cougar, I need the bag."

He walked over to us, opened the backpack he'd been carrying and handed it to her. She dug around inside, pulled out a ziplock bag filled with herbs, a flask, a small metal bowl and took a deep breath. "Dean, back away a few feet, let Cougar get in front of you. I'll explain everything after we do this."

I did what she asked, I know better than to argue when people start working on a spell. She started singing in Lakota as she mixed the herbs with a dark liquid that she poured from the flask. I watched as she dipped the point of her knife into the mixture and then set it on the brand. Jim went from completely unconcious to straining against the ropes and screaming through the gag. Sam and Roy bolted across the room, Sam pulled his gun and Roy was holidng the knife I'd given him earlier.

"She's got it," I told them, "Hold on." Neither of them put their weapons up but they didn't go charging into the room. Jim was writhing in pain, desperately trying to get away from whatever was on her blade but she stayed with him. The brand started twisting and smoking and his voice rose in pitch. Sweat started soaking his shirt, the air in the room went from mildly cool to stifling in seconds. Coyote closed her eyes and put more force behind her words, Jim's voice shifted from screams to a low, hissing growl , the brand glowed a sickly shade of browish yellow and stopped spinning.

She stopped singing, "Cougar! Now!"

Cougar's back was to me so I couldn't see exactly what he did, but I did see the cloud of dirt or crushed herbs he threw into the air. The minute he did that she started pulling the blade away and this weird, half transparent thing came with it. Whatever the hell it was it didn't want to come out and instead of singing she started reciting a phrase over and over while pulling against it. Another cloud of dust or whatever filled the air and a sound I have no idea how to describe came from the thing she was trying to remove. The only thing I can think of to compare it to was a demonic eagle cry. Jim was arching his back so hard I thought he'd break it when the thing came free. It had a bird's body, feathers and all but a neck and head like a snake, was the color of an infected oozing wound, opaque like a ghost and about a foot long. Coyote fell back when it popped out of Jim's chest, Cougar threw another handful of stuff at it which made it scream again, flicker in and out of view then spiral up through the roof and disappear.

She ripped the gag off of Jim's face and uncovered his eyes which were just about popping out of his face while he panted and coughed. "Breathe brother, breathe."

"Thank you, thank you," he repeated that a few more times while tears streamed down his cheeks and he shook. Coyote wrapped her arms around him, hummed that same Healing song that I remembered from the night we did the sweat and calmed him down.

I tore my eyes away from them and looked at Sam and Roy. Sam had put his gun away, his eyes asking all the same questions I wanted to ask while Roy just stood there, totally lost. Poor guy sure had jumped into the deep end of hunting between watching Sam and I remove the Mark and now this.

Cougar sagged against the door frame, "Are you all right?" He asked her.

"Yeah. Dean, can you untie him?"

That was a pretty odd question, I don't make my knots that tight. "Sure."

Cougar took a step back so I could get into the room and wasn't at all thrilled with how drained she looked. Her hands were shaking as she held him.

I crouched down next to her and started undoing the knots, "Guessing this isn't our evil shaman."

"No, she was controlling him," she took a deep breath, "Bending his will to hers. She's done this before, that bitch."

"So you know her?"

"Later. Promise. Let's help him first."

Once the ropes around his legs were off he struggled to his feet, Cougar caught him and they walked outside while she recovered. "The night air will help. I'll fix him some grounding tea in a second." She forced herself to stand, I reached out to help her but she waved me off. "I'm fine."

"Uh Coyote?" Sam said, "What was that thing?"

"Easiest explanation? Sort of the Native version of a demon but not independent of itself. It's kind of like a spiritual parasite that allows the Shaman to influence others." Although she made it to the kitchen she teetered a bit as she bent over to get a bag.

I'd had about enough of this, so I grabbed one of the folding chairs, set it next to her and shoved her into it. "Damn it, sit. You've drove all day, pulled off some crazy ass ritual and probably haven't had a decent meal. Sit, I'll get the bag."

That brought a small smile to her face, although it didn't stay there all that long. "Thanks. Those usually don't take that much out of me but it's been a long week."

I handed her the bag and what was left of the beer I'd opened. "Get me what I'm supposed to make tea with, although this place doesn't have pots."

She took a drink of the beer, then pulled out a ceramic mug and a small pouch of herbs, "Planned ahead. Just nuke some water in here, drop the herbs in and take it outside. Cougar will make sure he drinks it."

"Sure thing. Does this mean you'll start filling us in?"

"Yeah. Well the short version. I want to get to the hotel soon, I'm freaking beat and tomorrow's going to be a long day for all of us."

Sam beat me to it. "Why's that?"

"Because as soon as Jim's calm enough to talk, I'm going to find out where that bitch is and take her out and I'll need your help to do it."

There was something about how she drove the point of her blade deep into the counter top that made it fairly obvious to all of us that this wasn't just another hunt for her.


	13. Catching Up

The tea took about a minute and a half to heat up, I stuck the herbs in it and joined Cougar and Jim in the backyard. "Here," I handed the mug to Cougar, "She says he should drink this."

"Thank you."

Jim was in the corner of the yard aimlessly walking back and forth, he still seemed pretty disoriented. "How's he doing?"

"She had her claws in him for several weeks. I'm not sure he will ever be completely healed."

"Do you think he'll be able to give any useful answers?"

He shrugged, "Hopefully the tea helps him. I am sure she's in those woods where you found the bodies but Coyote always likes to know for sure."

"Yeah, I remember that."

A weird half frown twisted the corners of his mouth and he didn't seem all that thrilled with what he was about to say, "I apologize for my tone to you earlier on the phone. There was a reason for it but it's not really my place."

That's not enigmatic, "If the reason had anything to do with what happened between her and I, you're family to her. I get it."

"No, you really don't." He paused, looked through the sliding glass door at her, then back at me then to Jim. "Wait a minute, let me give this to him."

Once he'd sat Jim down and put the mug into Jim's hand he came back and he didn't look happy. As a matter of fact I was kind of surprised he didn't take a swing at me. "It's not what happened two years ago, it's what she went through this year because of you. Because of you she's had nightmares so bad she couldn't eat for days and was afraid to sleep. She had to struggle with finding ways to block out what she was seeing."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He took another step closer, I backed up and hit the wall behind me. I usually don't give ground but I didn't want to make things worse between her and I by picking a fight with Cougar, that and I wasn't too sure I'd win if I did.

He leaned in, his face was barely two inches from mine and death was in his eyes. "She wasn't as asleep as I thought when you called. After I hung up she told me I had no right to take that tone with you but I disagree. You are no warrior Dean Winchester, you are a selfish coward who only takes from ones he loves. You have been around magic too long to not know how you harmed her. If she wasn't so sure she needed you to stop what's about to happen I would beat you into the ground and leave you for dead. I will never forgive you for the hell you made her witness, even if she does." He let up and backed off.

"I..."

"The pouch you bastard. Think about it." He turned and stalked off.

Had she? Had I? Oh no, not that. Anything but that. "I didn't know."

He clenched his rather large fists but didn't look back at me, "You didn't want to know."

And I sunk to a whole new level of guilt. Fuck. The pouch, it helped me sleep, evened out the nightmares. It had been made out of love meaning she'd put a lot of feeling and intent behind it, intent that linked back to her. Which meant that someone as strong as she is would pick up on the dreams. Son of a bitch. The nightmares I'd had while wearing the Mark were things I'd never want to subject my worst enemy but I'd ended up subjecting someone I loved to them without a second thought. I knew better! He was right, I didn't know because I didn't want to know. God, I am a selfish coward. Why the hell hadn't she called me? Told me to stop.

Sam pulled open the back door, "Dean? You coming? We're...hey what's wrong?"

"Nothing." I was going to have a long talk with her about all that later, alone. I went back inside, pushed it all down and leaned against the center island. "All right. Talk."

"Her name is Leaping Deer," Coyote started out, "She should have been exiled years ago. Rising Dove told her tribal elders that she would cause problems but they didn't seem to care. She'd come to him trying to learn the ways of the Shaman, he turned her down flat and she stormed off. He saw her true nature, she only cares for herself, not the tribe and wants power for power's sake. She popped up here and there with a degenerate ex Shaman. We heard rumors that he'd been teaching her but she stayed clear of my home so we stayed clear of her. About a year back I was told that she was plotting something, some people from other tribes came to me scared to death of her. She'd left her Reservation and was living on the road or something along those lines, leaving a trail of terrified people, odd deaths and hints that she was gathering some sort of following. She started preaching that she knew how to get our pride back, get revenge on the white man and all that. That type of talk pops up every fifteen years or so from what I hear but she swore that she'd prove all of us skeptics wrong. Six months ago a family came to me, their eldest son had started acting strange, like Jim. One night the kid stole the family car and shot up a local police station for no reason. He'd been a well adjusted, straight A kid. I went to see him in prison, checked him out and saw he was being controlled. That's when Cougar and I went on the hunt and the visions started. They were vague at first, just omens and feelings but over the last month have gotten stronger, more specific. The one that hit before you texted was the worst yet. I saw what she is trying to resurrect," She look downright terrified, "We have to stop this. At all costs."

"Anything special needed to kill her?"

"Technically no. This is where it gets complicated. She's human, like we are, but she'll have some serious spirits on her side and may be using spirits as weapons."

"Ghosts aren't anything new to us," I pointed out.

"Not ghosts, spirits. Like my guides, Coyote and Crow. You can't kill them, you have to drive them off, then kill her. She may also use the Warrior Spirits of people who follow her."

"I'm sorry," Roy said, "I'm trying to keep up but.."

"Yeah, you may want to bail about now. This is no hunt for a first timer." It came out a lot harsher than I intended, "Look, Sam and I are dealing with things we're not too familiar with either on this one. We won't be able to explain it to you any better than she can."

"Then you'll probably need all the help you can get."

Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me? "Coyote? Little help here?"

"He's right, I need all the help I can get."

Well that backfired.

"Just do what I tell you Roy," she added, "If we make it through I'll try to explain it better."

"Won't be the first time I have no idea why I'm doing things," he replied, "Probably won't be the last time either."

She gave him a quick smirk, "Not if you keep hanging around these two. Let me go check on Jim, see if I can get some answers."

Once she left it got awkward. Sam started randomly shuffling papers and Roy just sat there, leaving me to stew in my guilt, which is always entertaining. Thankfully she came back pretty fast.

"You have a map of where all the bodies were found?"

"Yes," Sam answered.

"All right, Jim's a wreck but I can't do much more for him right now. I'll call a friend of mine who lives a few hours from here to come over and watch him, Cougar will keep an eye on him till they get here. Can you guys give me a ride to the hotel? I need to leave the car for Cougar to catch up later."

"Sure." It came out before I had time to think that through. Sam would not so innocently ride with Roy leaving her and I alone. I wasn't ready to talk to her yet but there was no way I could get out of it without looking like a jackass.

"I'll ride with Roy," Sam said, "We have to pick up some stuff anyway."

"We do?"

He obviously hadn't clued Roy in about Coyote and I.

"Yeah. Let's go."

Sam gave me the "Good luck man" look as he collected all the papers and headed out with Roy.

Coyote raised an eyebrow at me, "Well, that was subtle."

"If by subtle you mean like a Mack truck heading straight for you, sure. I got your rooms. Does Cougar know how to get to the hotel?"

"I'll text him the address and room number when we get there."

"All right, I'll drive, you call. You need some rest, you're wiped out."

"Won't argue with you there."

We gathered the rest of the bags and left. She called her friend, told her where to go and what was going on then hung up. I tried to avoid thinking about all the times we'd ridden in Baby together over the years and what that usually led to. It sure as hell wouldn't lead to that tonight. We didn't talk, I think she actually dozed off but Baby slowing down as I parked woke her up.

"You're downstairs, room 131. I'll grab your keys from my room and meet you there."

"Sounds good."

I went upstairs, dug through my bags, found the pouch, put it in my coat pocket, picked her and Cougar's room keys up off the table and met her in front of the door. She beelined for the bed as soon as I opened the door. "I still hate long drives." She said as she dropped her bags and sat down. "Guess I shouldn't get too comfy, still have to figure out where she is."

"Not yet," I shut the door, clicked on the room light and pulled out the pouch. "I want to give this back to you. I should have two years ago."

It took her a second to recognize what was in my hand. When she did all the angles and hardness left her face. "Why?"

"Cougar rather forcefully informed me I was being a selfish coward. He's right. I'm sorry for what you saw. I never, ever wanted to put you through that. I know better. If I'd taken five seconds to think about what this meant to you, not just me, I would have left it when I left that night, but I didn't. I kept using it, using you, even after you asked me to stop. It wasn't right. I never thought about how it could affect you," I had to fight to keep my tone even. There wasn't a hint of anger on her face, or hate, or disgust. Even though she'd mostly ignored me when she'd shown up it wasn't because of the pouch or what she'd seen. I knew that because as I'd stumbled over my apology what was on her face was understanding, even a hint of caring.

She shook her head, "Keep it. I gave it to you for a reason. I gave it knowing you had nightmares and if you came back from Hell they would be worse. I accepted that burden then, still do now."

She wasn't making sense, "Why?"

"Because I didn't want you to face that alone."

"I've got Sam, you didn't need to go through that."

She walked over to me, took hold of my hand and the pouch, pushed it towards my chest and pierced whatever was left of my soul with her deep brown eyes. "If Sam was enough, you wouldn't sleep with that under your pillow almost every night. Keep it."

I never planned to be this close to her again when I'd left and between the Mark, Abaddon and everything else that had happened since, I'd forgotten how intense things could be between us, I could tell she had too. Her pupils dilated, she'd started to lean in but caught herself before starting something that she'd probably regret in the morning. What was worse than the physical side acting up was the other thing that stirred deep inside me, I'd held onto that pouch not just for dealing with nightmares. I'd missed her, everything about her and it had sucked. Now here she was, not five inches from me but still miles away. I wouldn't make things any worse for her than I already had so I backed away, which didn't help much because I had no idea what to say.

"Are you sure?" I went for safe.

"Yes. What room are you in?"

"242."

"Let me change and clean up. Then I'll come over and we can figure out our next move."

"Sure." I set the keys on the table by the door and left. She wasn't the only one that needed a shower, I had to wonder who's would be colder, her's or mine.


	14. What's The Worst That Could Happen?

I didn't even bother using hot water, "Get a grip!" The sides of the shower stall were rather icy after the first five minutes. I'd thought a lot about her since that last night but more in the those were great memories way, definitely not in the I'd be working with her again way. Especially on a job like this. The higher the stakes on a job the more your brain goes into last night on earth mode whether you want it to or not. Usually I'm just with Sam so sex isn't on my mind, but being with her was going to bring all that up. When my teeth started chattering I figured it was time to get out. I'd set the pouch on the sink, I could just sneak it back into her bags. I wouldn't be able to use it anymore now that I knew what it was doing to her. Getting rid of the Mark didn't get rid of the nightmares. They weren't as bad but they were still there. I'd just finished getting my pants on when there was a knock at the door. I made sure to get my shirt on before I opened it, no reason to set up another awkward staring moment. I checked the peephole and saw her hair was down, I always did love it that way.

I took a deep breath, focused on undead Indians trying to scalp me and opened the door, "Hey."

"Hi." She walked into the room with a small smile on her face, "Oh and if that pouch ends up back in my bags I'll just stick it right back into yours. Use it when you need to, I can block most of your worst nightmares out now. It kind of helped me work harder on learning some skills I needed to anyway."

Crap. "Cougar said it was so bad you couldn't eat, were scared to sleep. You think I'll still use it after finding that out?"

"I think that if I wanted you to stop using it I would have called you." Her jaw tightened and she looked at the map on the wall, "You weren't being selfish or a coward. He should have kept his nose out of it."

"You've been friends forever, I'd of done the same thing if I was in his shoes. Take it. Please."

"No." I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes but she turned completely away from me.

"Look, I already hurt you when I left. I know that. I don't want to keep doing it."

"Then keep the damn pouch!"

I'll admit to being pretty hard headed over the years, disregarding a lot of things people were trying to tell me because I thought I knew better. Sam and I stayed up late for a whole week up at Oliver's place going over that. It wasn't that I didn't know that what I was doing would end up backfiring at some point, hurt them or piss them off. It was usually because I was trying too hard to keep people alive so was in some version of panic or another. How she sounded right then, how she was avoiding looking at me; I got the inkling that me keeping the pouch wasn't just about her accepting a burden or her worrying about me being alone. I also knew that now was not the time to push her about it, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't try one more time.

"Fine, I'll keep it on one condition."

"What?"

"That after we kill this bitch you do something to it so it doesn't link back to you."

"No. If I do that it won't work as well."

I figured as much. Once Cougar had told me what was going on I knew she had to be giving me her strength to make it through. "Okay, then tell me why you want me to keep it."

She froze, "Drop it."

Did I mention she's a stubborn as I am?

"I'm in no mood to have this conversation," she continued in a voice that made the shower I'd just taken seem hot, "If you want to use it fine, if not, fine. My reasons are my own. Neither you or Cougar have any goddamn right to know them. Are we clear?"

"Sure." I knew right then and there she hadn't told me to stop because that pouch kept her connected to me. That she'd suffered through all that hell because it was the only way to keep me somehow in her life. I didn't deserve her and after this job I was going to make sure I could never harm her again. I'd live with nightmares before that pouch, I could do it again. "Did Jim tell you anything useful?"Her shoulders relaxed, the job we could talk about, it was safe.

"Yes. He said she's been staying somewhere out in the woods near the center of where she was placing the bodies. He also stated that from what he knows she has a pretty decent amount of followers here."

"Great."

The door opened, Sam and Roy stepped in. "Hey," Sam said with a quick inquiring look at me, I shook my head just enough so he'd know to not talk about it later. He looked away and set down a bag, "Grabbed some breakfast stuff, snacks for a hike and water bottles. I figured we'd be getting an early start and heading into those woods so decided to save us some time."

"The years haven't slowed you down I see," she said, "I was just telling Dean that Jim said Leaping Deer is hanging out in the center of the slew of bodies she's left behind."

"Of course," Sam said with a sigh, "That's what, four miles off the trail and three miles in?"

"Around that. Hope you guys are up to it."

Roy looked at the map with a frown, "Something's been bugging me about those bodies."

"Other than the ritual desecration?" I asked.

"Yeah. How'd the cops find them? They're out in the middle of nowhere. Sure, one or two are by a trail but the rest are miles off the beaten path."

Sam shrugged, "Well they did send out search parties, usually they have dogs with them."

"But how did they know to look in that area?"

"Maybe Jim knew and fought her just enough to tip off the cops?" I said.

Coyote's eyes narrowed as she churned that over in her brain, "Or some of her followers aren't as loyal as she thinks. This, what she's doing, it goes against everything we are as a people. Maybe someone is trying to stop her."

"Or it's a trap," Sam added.

"Really Sammy? Had to go there didn't you?"

He nodded, "With our history? Yeah kind of did. Coyote? Does she know you're tracking her?"

The right side of her mouth twitched into a quick snarl, "She's bound to have visions, so it's possible."

This hotel had a mini bar, I decided this was as good of time as any to make use of that perk, "Ah my favorite kind of job, the kind where not only do we not know what they know but we also don't know if it's an elaborate scheme to kill us, versus the up front schemes to kill us. Sam? I'm really starting to like Oliver's offer to be his cleaning crew for that big ass house. Just sayin'. "

"Right there with ya man," he replied as he sunk down into a chair. "So. Plan?"

"Take a hike into the woods expecting an ambush," she replied.

"Crap plan," I countered, "Shouldn't we at least see if she's in town? Is there a way you can do that?"

"With magic? Maybe, but it's not definitive. Jim seemed pretty sure that she was though."

"How about without magic?" Sam asked.

She shook her head, "Would take too long. She needs to kill another person within the next few days, more than likely she's out in the woods prepping for that."

That was a bit of a surprise, "Uh what?"

"She needs four more bodies, that was the other thing Jim said." She looked away from the map and back at me, "It's not just about directions, it's about the yearly cycle. Four major equinoxes and the halfway points in between, and the people required will get younger as she goes."

Sam, Roy and I all looked at each other, any question of backing down or out was pretty much gone at that point. "All right then, we go hiking tomorrow and she goes down," it needed one more thing though, "We're following your lead on this. Like you said, your world, your rules. Everyone okay with that?" Sam and Roy both nodded.

"Guess it's early to bed for us then," I said, something in her face told me there was more though, "Unless there's something else we need to know?"

"Maybe."

She looked nervous, Coyote usually doesn't do nervous. "Maybe?"

"I...I need to think. I'll tell you tomorrow. Get some rest."

She left without another word.

"Shit."

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

"What?" Roy asked.

"That's the code for crap will hit the fan, expect the unexpected and assume it will be the worst possible scenario."

He frowned, "I thought she was an expert."

"One thing about experts Roy, there's still always something they don't know. They just know more than you do, doesn't mean they know everything." I sat down on the bed I'd chosen for the night and started pulling off my boots. "Get as much sleep as you can, tomorrow bring whatever weapons you have and go into this like it's life or death, because it is. Got it? Someone comes at you, don't worry about slowing them down first, just put them down." The reason I'd told him he should get out while the gettin' was good seemed to finally be sinking into his head.

"But they're not monsters Dean, they're people."

"They're being controlled by a monster," I pointed out, "We won't have time to stop and do that ritual every single time. Put them down so they can't get back up. Usually in cases like this a gut shot or leg shot won't matter." I watched him struggle with that concept for a minute or two, "No one will fault you for leaving Roy. I know how Oliver runs things in Starling and I know why. Once you take this step it's pretty hard to go back. Trust me. Up to you."

How I wish I could go back eight or nine years and know that all I had to take down were monsters, when things were black and white, human or monster. It was easy. Simple, back before I'd become the monster, before I knew what it was like to truly take a life. How it ate at you, took you apart bit by bit until you lost what separated you from the things you used to hunt. I really didn't want to see Roy turn into that, turn into Oliver or I. I dug my sweats out of my bag and headed into the bathroom to change. "Think about it."

When I got back out he and Sam were gone and the door between the rooms were shut. Sam was probably being Sam and trying to counsel Roy, or at least listen to him. I had other things on my mind, I turned off the light and laid down, only to have my damn brain fire up with what ifs. Somehow the what ifs this time around were worse than the nightmares I usually have. It wasn't what ifs about what we'd face tomorrow, none of that really bugged me. I don't really get all worked up over monsters or fucked up people trying to destroy the world anymore. What my stupid brain decided to torment me with this time was wondering which nightmares she'd seen, if she'd felt what I felt when the Mark had pretty much taken me over, what if she knew, really knew how bad I'd gotten. How the hell could she even look at me, trust me, want to be in the same fucking state I was after all of that? I hate my brain.


	15. Into the Woods

I drifted off somewhere between beating myself up again for taking the Mark and wondering if I should go to Cougar's room and let him make good on his threat. The alarm went off, jolting me awake. I hate those things, I also hate mornings just on general principle. I rolled over, turned it off and saw that Sam was still asleep, or pretending to be.

"Hey!" I chucked a pillow at him.

"Mrhmghm."

That was about all I made out, "Wake up, time to move."

"I'm up, I'm up." He rolled over and looked up at the ceiling.

"Roy still with us?"

"Yes."

"You don't sound all that thrilled about it."

"I'm not. Are you?"

"No, didn't want to drag him this far down."

"Me neither. He has his bow in his car, said he's more comfortable using that then a gun. I gave him a machete and some knives from our stash." He sat up.

"Hope he's at least half as good with that bow as Oliver is or he'll be a liability."

"Yeah, I know. I'll go clean up, we were up late talking. I'll text him, see if he's up."

"Cool. I'll call her and see what's going on."

He nodded, grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom. I called her.

"Morning." She sounded wiped out.

"You sounding like that already doesn't bode well for the rest of the day."

"I got sleep, just not good sleep. Give me an hour, Cougar and I will meet you in your room."

"You sure you don't want to snoop around town first?"

"She's in those woods, trust me." She'd gone from wiped out to tense in about five seconds.

"Vision, hunch or both?"

"Hunch, backed by what Cougar told me when he got back from Jim's place. Someone tried to take them out."

That got me moving. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, "What? Are they all right? Why the hell didn't you call me?"

"Cougar took care of it. Someone took a shot at them, he tracked them into the hills for an hour or so; didn't see them but saw enough hints. She's there, she has friends with her and it's not going to be an easy hike. Didn't tell you last night because there was no point. I'm not taking us into the hills at night where she knows the lay of the land and we don't. I need an hour to prep a few things. See you then." She hung up. As much as I care about her, the whole take charge and hang up on me gets downright irritating after a few times. This was her world, I trusted her but I've never gotten used to someone other than Dad giving orders and he's been gone for years. It's probably good for me, give me an idea of how Sam felt growing up and all that. I looked at it that way for about three seconds, didn't help. Since I was awake and wasn't going to be able to doze after that conversation I stood up and grabbed some of the food Sam had picked up. I was chowing down on some sort of pastry thing when he came out of the bathroom.

"Roy's up, he'll be over in a few. What's going on with Coyote?"

"She'll be here in an hour, she didn't sleep well, oh and someone took a shot at Cougar and Jim last night. It's okay though because Cougar took an unscheduled hike into the woods and found hints that Leaping Deer and friends are there. Nothing big or anything."

"Uh huh."

His face did that forehead wrinkle, eyebrow thing he does when he's trying to decide how truly insane we are."So, how are you?"

"Just peachy."

"Right." Now he just looked concerned. "Are we talking about it or just barreling ahead like old times?"

"Barreling ahead, much more fun. Nothing to talk about." That got me a long stare. "Fine, nothing I want to talk about before we walk into an ambush."

"Okay, so more of an after narrowly escaping death again topic."

"Yup."

"Just so we're on the same page."

We just sort of looked at each other, wondering why the hell we were in yet another fucked up situation. "Coffee?" I asked.

"Sure, there was a place on the corner. You want to go?"

"Why not? Better than just sitting here." I remembered what Coyote usually got but figured I'd ask just in case she wasn't in the mood. I changed, grabbed the keys and walked to Coyote's room to see if she or Cougar wanted something. I'd ask Cougar face to face but didn't feel like pressing my luck after our earlier conversation. I was about to knock on her door when I caught a hint of sage, her curtains weren't quite closed so I peeked in. She was kneeling, swaying back and forth, eyes closed and there was a small trail of smoke rising from a bowl on the ground in front of her. The bowl wasn't the only thing on the ground, I saw the edge of at least one small throwing axe laying between her knees and the bowl. What the hell?

"She's blessing them." Cougar's voice came from behind me, I stopped myself from throwing an elbow into his throat, barely. I have no idea how he moves so damn quietly. I've got good instincts and I hadn't even felt him, considering his earlier threat I found that a bit unnerving.

"Want coffee?" I asked.

He looked confused, "You're not asking why?"

"What's the point? She'll tell me when I need to know and you'll follow her lead." That made him think, but he didn't push it.

"Yes, double shot espresso. She'll take the same." He started reaching into his back pocket.

"On me. Back in a few, I'll drop them off at your room if you're not in mine." I walked by him and got into Baby. When I looked back towards the hotel he was leaning against the wall, watching me. I usually don't care all that much about what people think about me, and I sure as hell couldn't blame him for being pissed for what I put her through, but it was good to know that I might have made him reconsider wanting to kill me seeing as how we were going to be fighting on the same side of things.

The people at the coffee place moved fast so I made it back in less than thirty minutes. I got Roy some plain black coffee, he seemed to always order that. Sam and I usually went for triple shots on jobs like this. Nothing says killing monsters like caffeine fueled adrenaline rushes after yet another night of crappy sleep. I went to our room first, Roy and Sam were pulling all the obits and such off the walls and packing them away.

"Sam, our usual," I handed him his cup, gave Roy his and heard a knock on the door. I'd left it open but apparently Cougar had decided to not scare the hell out of me, again. "These are yours." I gave him the two cups.

"Thanks." He stood there for a second, "Did she tell you about the attack on Jim?"

"She said someone took a shot at you two, she didn't go into details."

"You don't have a lot of experience tracking people in the woods do you?" He asked.

"I've picked some up," No need to try to explain Purgatory. Sam shook his head but Roy surprised us.

"Oliver has taken me out to the woods around the Lake House for some pretty intensive training, so I've got some."

Sam had told me more about how Oliver had helped him after I'd gone to Hell. The way he described how Oliver pretty much became one with the forest sounded a lot like me in Purgatory. I know Oliver well enough to know how intense an intensive training from him would get. Looks like Roy was going to be a lot better off than I was thinking.

"These people with Leaping Deer, they are Warriors," Cougar continued, "Twisted and dark true but they are following the old ways. Once we get into the woods I'll take point. I have been tracking things since I could walk along with hunting and training in the old ways, even with all that finding their trail was a challenge. They are waiting for us, she knows we are coming. I am sure of that now."

I really didn't like where this was heading, "Why am I getting the sense that this is some sort of show down between her and Coyote?"

"Coyote is one of the few that could stop her."

"So why isn't anyone else from your people helping out?" Sam asked.

"Not all of them think that stopping her is the right choice. They won't fight her but..."

"They're selfish cowards?" I suggested, not the least bit sarcastically of course. He didn't really appreciate that.

"Yes. I'll take this to her. We will be back soon." He shut the door behind him.

Sam hadn't missed my tone, "That part of the thing we're not talking about?"

"Yup. Roy, you'll be riding with us. If shit goes south you're safer with us then on your own on this one."

He didn't argue, "All right."

We drank our coffee and wiped out the rest of the food Sam had gotten for breakfast then Coyote and Cougar showed up, I had to stop myself from staring. Coyote has various versions of "going Native" as she calls it depending on the situation. Usually she's in jeans, a t shirt or comfy button up shirt and boots. I've seen her dressed up on three occasions, once when she had to prove her worth to some assholes back when we did the vision thing all those years ago, once when I showed up somewhat unannounced and her and Rising Dove had just gotten back from some sort of tribe meeting and then when Rising Dove died. I got there the day after the funeral, she had to be recognized as Shaman of the tribe and was in full on Native ceremonial dress for that, down to the feathered headdress. When I saw her like that, saw what path she was on I knew that it would be one of the last times I saw her, even without our talk. She had a position of importance, her people needed her and there was a segment of them that weren't too fond of me. There had been plenty of resistance thrown her way ever since she started training with Rising Dove, you'd think once she became Shaman it would go away but people don't usually work like that. I didn't actually attend the ceremony, I watched from a good distance away but I still got looks thrown my way, the not so veiled insults as people walked by. I didn't react, didn't even let them know I cared. They could say what they wanted about me, it was the ones who said shit about her that I had to fight the urge to put them in their place. So it was really no surprise when she told me to make a choice, I'd pretty much made up my mind by the time that ceremony was over. I just didn't want to spring it on her when she was still dealing with Rising Dove's death.

How she looked when she walked in was somehow even more dramatic than how she looked that day. True she didn't have the headdress on, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. Her outfit was white with bold red, blue and yellow stripes that ran across her chest and down the side along with a wide variety of Lakota symbols scattered in between the stripes. The sleeveless top was one of those square necked jobs and it the bottom of it landed on her thighs. I spotted at least one Thunderbird worked into the shirt along with several crossed arrows and a few other things as well. Although the shirt was sleeveless black and grey feathers hung from white wrist guards that ran the length of her forearm and there was colored strips of leather were attached to the bottom of her shirt and reached almost to her knees. The pants were just as colorful and she was wearing moccasins, not work boots. Her hair was split into two braids which had feathers and beads worked into them and she was wearing one of those chest pieces you see the pictures of. They're made with those longer white beads and seem to act like chest plates more than necklaces. She still wore the silver armband her father had given her all those years ago along with the necklaces and pouch she'd been wearing when we met up last night.

Cougar loomed large next to her. He was in a long sleeved, blood red shirt, with a full array of those white beaded chest plate pieces hanging from his neck. His hair was still down but several white, grey and black feathers were worked into the hair around his face and brushed his collar bone. Yellow, almost gold colored bands of fabric wrapped around his sleeves directly above his elbows and he was wearing a beaded choker around his neck. His pants were brown with red and yellow fringe running down the sides and tucked into mid-shin high moccasins.

I felt like I had been thrown back in time a few hundred years and I began to understand just why the Natives had been so feared and respected as warriors back in the day. It wasn't just the clothes, it was this sense of resolve the two of them had. They'd never break, never give up who they really were no matter what was done to them. I looked at Sam and Roy, they'd been caught off guard just as much as I had. Sam covered it a bit better than Roy.

I fell back on my tried and true method of dealing with things like this, "Guess we're not going for subtle then?"

I'm not sure why that struck her as funny but she lost the stony faced look and a smile worked it's way around her lips. "Not so much. We have a few more touches to do once we get out there."

"You don't think you're making enough of a statement as it is?"

She sobered back up, "It's not just about making a statement. There's other reasons."

Shaman stuff then, great.

"We ready to roll?"

"Almost." She set her bag down, pulled out three of those throwing axes, check that, tomahawks and set them on the table. They had red leather cord wrapped around the grip which three red feathers were attached to. "Here, don't use these unless I tell you to. They're designed to take down a certain thing which I hope to hell she doesn't use."

"Which is what exactly?" Sam pressed.

"Remember when I mentioned that she could use people's Warrior Spirits against us?"

"Yeah?" I really didn't like where this was going.

"If that happens, you have to use these."

"Are we killing souls?"

She met my eyes, I knew the answer before she said it.

"Technically yes."

Roy stared at the tomahawk and backed away. "You had better give me a real good reason why the hell I would do that. I'll only follow along blindly for so long."

It was Cougar who answered, "Because Roy, if you don't kill their Spirits, they will take yours from you. If we fail to stop her, the Spirits of all your people will be in danger. Your people corrupted and destroyed our Spirits with your treaties, your diseases, your alcohol, your lies. She seeks to return the favor. These things she's trying to resurrect, they will devour the Spirits of the young, the old, women and men, just as your soldiers did to us all those years ago."

"I, how? I don't understand.."

He really picked the worst case ever to start with, "Roy, remember how I was during that ritual?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, now imagine that there are a few hundred thousand pissed off spirits that are in that exact same mindset. Now turn them loose on the world."

He lost quite a bit of color as he worked that idea through his brain, "And that can actually happen?"

"Yes, trust me on this. I wouldn't be signing up for this if I didn't think it could."

"Same here," Sam added.

Roy took a long look at us, then shifted his eyes to Coyote who softened her gaze, "Roy, I know this is not something you've prepared for or a world you even know much about but for some reason you decided to join up with Sam and Dean. You had to know some of what they'd seen and dealt with, known about vampires and ghosts. The world you have lived in all your life is a small part of what truly exists and just like the world you know, this world has it's share of evil people and things who are bent upon the destruction of others. If you remove the supernatural element from it you'll see that it all comes down to the same choices that you've already faced."

"Yeah, but Oliver and I, we don't kill people."

"Have you never faced an adversary that the usual prisons couldn't hold?"

"Well, yeah but..."

She walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Leaping Deer wishes to raise the dead to destroy the living. You can't put a ghost in jail. Those followers who choose to allow her to use them in such a way that their Warrior Spirit is corrupted will not stand down. These are not people like Jim who she bent to her will, these are people that volunteered. Think about it." She backed away from him and looked back at us. "We've got to get moving."

"Got it," I answered. "We've got the maps just in case."

Sam and I grabbed our bags and the tomahawks, Roy just stood there. I handed Sam my bags and the keys to Baby. "Go load up. Be down in a second." Sam nodded and the three of them left.

"It's not that I don't want to save people," Roy said.

"I know. Sam told me that you guys had a weird thing happen in Starling a few years back, guys hopped up on some drug?"

His face darkened, "Mirakuru, told people into irrational super soldiers. They were pretty close to unstoppable and driven by rage."

"Right, okay. Give me an overview on that."

"Short version, Oliver had an enemy that the drug turned completely nuts, he wanted to destroy the city to get to Oliver. So he killed Oliver's mom, injected the drug into a bunch of guys and let them loose. Took everything we had to stop them."

"This enemy that was running things, what happened?"

"Oliver stuck him on a deserted island in some sort of super secret prison."

For some reason it didn't surprise me that an island was involved. "What about the guys on the Mirakuru?"

"We found an antidote but some of them didn't make it," he admitted.

"This is the same set up, crazy bitch making people into something they're not. Pulling on their rage, hate, need for vengeance to twist them up, make them evil. Those guys on the Mirakuru, if you hadn't found an antidote you'd be looking at the same choice then that you are now. I'm not saying it's great choice but vamps, werewolves, hell most of the monsters we hunt were people once. In most cases, once they turn into a monster they can't be brought back. This is why I told you this is more intense than what you guys deal with back home. There is no monster prison, it's us or them, plain and simple. Leaping Deer won't stop, she can't be reasoned with, if she could Coyote would have done that already. Her followers? Same thing. I'll let you think for a few minutes but we're on the clock here." I was halfway out the door when his voice stopped me.

"Dean? Does this feel right to you?"

"She's killed five people, going to go for eight total and that's just the warm up. Her followers, the super dedicated ones, they have to know what she's planning. So yeah, as much as I don't want to destroy someone's soul, fact is by going along with her, they've pretty much already trashed what soul they had. Does it feel good? No. Does it feel right? Yes." If I had asked myself that question when I was staring Cain in the face demanding that he give me the Mark I probably would have saved myself a year of hell. That hadn't felt right or good. "But how I feel doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel."

"I can still see the wedding invitations that were on Rebecca's table. She won't ever get to send those."

"No, she won't."

"I'm in." I heard him pick the tomahawk up and then he was standing next to me. "Let me get my bow and a few other things from my car."

"Sure thing." I should have felt proud or something, he'd made the right choice after all, but I wasn't proud of him. I was too busy feeling sorry for him. I knew that what he'd end up seeing would scar him, change him and I was pretty sure it wouldn't be a change for the better.


	16. When Things Get Worse

Sam was already in Baby, Cougar and Coyote were in her car and it was already running. Roy jogged to his car, I got into mine and backed her up so our trunk lids would block the view from the hotel while he moved his stuff over. Sam didn't say anything, I got back out and popped the trunk. Roy moved fast so it wasn't more than minute later when I closed the trunk while he got into the backseat. I got back in, pulled in behind Coyote and we headed out.

She led us up some roads that led farther into the hills where the bodies had been found and finally pulled off and down a dirt road that led a few miles into the forest. We came to a small river, she parked and they got out of the car. The three of us followed suit, she opened the trunk of her car and Cougar started gathering things while she pointed across the river in a northeast direction. "I dug around on the net looking for unlisted hiking trails and such by where the bodies were laid out. A seven mile hike from the main trail was going to take way too long and I really don't want to spend the night out here."

I grabbed my 1911, the machete and a few other things while she talked. "Can't argue with that."

"There's supposedly a small trail that starts across the river that's about a two mile hike to where we need to be. Hope those tennis shoes are waterproof Roy."

"Give me a second. I brought different clothes" He reached into a bag and pulled out his boots and pants from his Arsenal suit.

I had to stop myself from saying anything too harsh, "You brought that?" Who the hell puts their "secret identity suit" in the trunk of their car?

"Not the whole thing, I'm not an idiot. The pants are setup to hold weapons like knives and those darts, plus they're leather so will work pretty well out here and the boots are waterproof and quiet. Sort of like the moccasins they have on."

"Oh, makes sense then. Good call."

He changed out of his jeans and tennis shoes, Coyote and Cougar hung a bunch of pouches from their pants and around their necks, I was guessing herbs for whatever she thought she was going to need them for and Sam and I loaded up on weapons. Roy slung his quiver across his back, picked up his bow, closed Baby's trunk and we followed Cougar across the river. As soon as we hit the woods all those fun things I'd picked up in Purgatory came back, looking up, checking out shadows for any movement, listening for twigs snapping, lack of animal sounds, trying to avoid stepping on branches or leaves as much as possible. The woods were damp so that helped keeping the sounds of our feet down. Cougar and Coyote were in front and I leaned closer to Sam's ear. "Watch where they walk, try to hit the same spots. Keep the noise down." He nodded. I drifted back to the rear of the group, Roy was to the right and slightly ahead of me, Sam to my left and Cougar and Coyote were ranging back and forth in the front.

We'd covered a decent amount of ground when Cougar froze and threw his right hand up in a fist. He pointed at something on the ground and motioned to Coyote, who took a step closer to him and looked down, she nodded and motioned for us to get closer to her. We all joined her, "Trap," she said then picked up a pretty thick branch and shoved it into the ground hard, a rope wrapped around the branch and yanked it up into the tree.

Well that made things more interesting, "We sure that's not just a hunting trap for deer?" I whispered.

"Usually you don't try to yank a deer into the trees," Coyote pointed out.

"True."

Cougar inched his way forward, made it about five feet and waved us on. We joined him and he pointed to the trees on either side, pointed at each of us in turn, spread his hand apart, looked at Coyote and shrugged. He wanted us to spread out and wait to see if anyone came to check the trap.

"That probably would work better if one of us screamed like we were caught." I suggested, still in low tones, he looked a bit surprised that I'd understood the sign language, turned slightly to the right and pointed to the ground again. I picked up on the outline of the rope underneath the leaves and nodded. "Well?" I asked Coyote.

"Pick a direction guys," she replied. "I'll trip that in a few seconds"

Cougar moved and I swear just melted into the woods to the right of us. I was watching him and I still didn't see where he went or hear a single sound, which made me pretty happy he was on my side of this fight. I'd hate to have him actually pissed off to the point where he'd decided to hunt me. That probably wouldn't end too well for me. Roy went left and did a pretty good job of fading into the shadows, Sam went forward and ducked behind some trees.

"I'll play bait," I offered. "You hide. Just don't leave me hanging up there."

"Not the plan," she snapped, "Don't argue. I'll trip it we both hide."

"Cougar said these guys are trained in the old ways. If people are watching this somewhere or waiting to hear it go they'll know the difference between a branch going up and a full grown person. They obviously aren't right here or they would have attacked already. I'll go up, we wait a few minutes, if no one shows, cut me down and we move on."

"And if someone does show up? You'll be a sitting duck up there if someone decides to take you out without getting close." She was keeping the worry off her face but her eyes told a different story.

"I've got a gun and I'll have a pretty good view from up there. It's not the first time I had to take things out while hanging upside down. Don't ask. You know I'm right, move."

"Dean!" Sam hissed from behind his tree.

"It's fine. We're wasting time." I took a step forward. The rope locked onto my ankle and I shot up. I didn't have to try to yell. Even though I knew it was coming it's still a bit surprising when that happens. The rope snaked up the side of the tree, I slammed into the trunk and crashed through a few branches before I was dangling, swinging from side to side and slowly spinning in a circle. "Son of a bitch that hurt!"

Fun fact, snares don't tend to stop tightening, especially when suspending about two hundred pounds eight or nine feet off the ground. There are reasons I tend to go for boots with higher tops and have a blade strapped to my ankle. Those things tend to stop ropes from cutting off circulation to your foot in situations like these. Not all the monsters in Purgatory were just about mindlessly attacking anything that moved, some of them liked to prolong the kill. Fun fact number two, it takes about sixty seconds of blood running to your head before you start to get a headache. I started hollering, "Hey! Help! Anyone out there! Help!" I struggled against the rope, pulled myself up as much as I could and in general made as much noise as possible. Fun fact three, sixty seconds takes a damn long time to pass when you're hanging upside down from a tree branch. It felt like ten minutes before they showed up but I knew it was probably more like three. I saw four guys heading towards me from the side of the woods Cougar and Coyote were on. They were Native and dressed similar to Cougar. They all had long hair, bows strapped across their backs and moved like they'd been born to the woods. I wasn't sure if Coyote and Cougar had seen them so I figured I'd give them a heads up. "Hey! You guys over there!" I pointed towards the direction the guys were coming from, "Little help here!"

The one that was in a dark blue shirt and black pants pulled his bow off his back, nocked an arrow and pointed it at me. "Whoa, whoa! No need for that guys. Wait, are you Indians? What the hell is this? It 2015 not 1815. You guys have some unresolved issues or something?" I've always held the firm belief that pissing off things that are about ready to kill you keeps you alive longer. Most of the time they just can't keep their mouths shut and have to say something back to you.

"Shut up." Blue shirt ordered. "These are our woods, not yours."

"Yeah, last time I checked they belonged to the state of Colorado, but hey, if you pay your taxes I guess you technically own them. Care to cut me down?" Why the hell wasn't Coyote doing anything?

The rest of them gathered around me and looked up, "What do we do with him?" The one with the beige shirt asked.

"He's too old for the next stage." Blue shirt replied, "Kill him, cut..."

An arrow flew out of Roy's side of the woods and nailed blue shirt in the back, straight into his heart, he dropped like a rock. I craned my neck and saw Roy stand up, nail beige shirt with another arrow to the chest and duck back behind a tree. The other two bad guys yanked their bows off their backs but before they could take any shots Cougar had somehow morphed out of the woods and took the one with a green shirt out with a knife to the throat while Sam lunged from his hiding spot and shoved a knife into the last one's neck, then yanked it out and let the guy drop.

"Catch him," Cougar said to Sam.

"Got it." Sam got beneath me and I watched Cougar wrap his hands around the rope right before Coyote severed it with a knife. Cougar lowered me down, Sam grabbed my shoulders and guided me to the ground. I worked the snare off my ankle and looked over at Roy. I don't know how many people he's killed so far but he mechanically yanked his arrow out of the guy's back, wiped the blood off on the dead man's shirt and stuck it back in his quiver. I knew better than to compliment his accuracy.

"May have been nice to ask one of these guys where she is," I suggested.

"They don't need to talk to tell us that," Cougar countered. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

No one said anything as we left the four bodies behind and followed their tracks deeper into the woods.


	17. Following In Their Footsteps

I'm not a bad tracker but I apparently wasn't seeing half of what Cougar was. He kept his eyes glued to the ground, would kneel down from time to time to look at some leaf or branch then move on. Coyote never once questioned his judgement, I got the impression that they'd been doing this a lot recently. They moved together without hesitation, just like Sam and I do. I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck just as Roy pulled off a move that I never thought I would see in real life.

I'd been trailing along in the back again, Roy ahead of me and slightly behind Sam then Cougar and Coyote. Out of nowhere Roy lunged forward, jumped, shoved his right foot into Sam's back, pivoted left using Sam's back as a platform as Sam face planted into the dirt and an arrow landed in the ground about three inches from Sam's head. "Trees!" He shouted and we all scattered, I heard arrows flying by me but these guys were nowhere near as good as Oliver or Roy.

Roy'd been walking with an arrow already locked and loaded and when he pivoted off of Sam's back he'd brought the bow up towards the trees and fired. Someone screamed and crashed down to the ground. Sam rolled, got up and ducked behind a tree. I raised my gun up, spotted another one and fired, he dropped, then someone landed on my back knocking me down.

"Dean!" Sam snarled and I heard his gun go off but he must have missed for some reason because the guy on top of me didn't go limp. I'd landed on my side and saw a hand with a knife come flying towards me. I couldn't shoot since I'd landed on that arm so I drove a pretty badly aimed fist at the guy's arm. I got lucky because my fist collided with his wrist and he dropped the knife, then drove his other hand toward my head. I blocked his hand with my forearm, then Roy's boot came out of somewhere and kicked the guy in the head. The guy went flying back, Roy moved on to someone else and the guy's eyes rolled back in his head. He'd be out for awhile.

I took a quick look to see who needed help. Roy was more than holding his own doing some weird flipping, kicking moves that kept him moving in all directions at once. The guys attacking us had no idea how to handle what he was doing. He'd taken Oliver's style and turned it into something a lot more intricate for some reason. Roy's smaller build probably made Oliver's usual hits a lot less devastating so he'd fallen back on his legs and staying out of range of larger people. I didn't watch him for more than ten seconds but in that time he knocked out two more guys and drove a blade into a third. He didn't need help.

Sam must have lost his gun or chose, like I had, not to use it in close quarters like this. Too many chances someone moves at the wrong time and you end up hitting a friend. He'd gotten cornered by two guys, his back was against a tree but he had range, as usual, on the guys he was up against. His fists connected and they dropped. Cougar had already dropped one guy and was just finishing throwing a blade into the back of one that was coming towards me. Coyote was the one that was hardest pressed, she, like Sam had backed up against a tree to keep anyone from getting behind her. She had three guys on her and they looked like the best fighters in the group. Roy was out of my line of fire, Cougar saw her just as I did and Sam had just knocked the last of his people out. I took a chance and fired at the back of one of them. He screamed and fell, Coyote took advantage of his buddies reacting to that and gutted the one directly in front of her. The last one swiped at her just as she brought her blade back around, he missed, she didn't. He was down but not out. She kicked his blade away as soon as he hit the ground, and got out of range of the one she'd just put down. None of them were dead from what I could see.

There was blood spattered all across her white shirt, she probably should have picked a better color to wear. She drove her boot into the chest of the last guy she'd sliced, he screamed but that didn't seem to bother her all that much. "How many more are left?"

"Enough to kill you."

"How many!" She put her weight on his knife wound again, he squirmed but kept his mouth shut. She pressed harder and he started talking in a different language, judging by her reaction she recognized what it was since she barely let him get four words out before driving her knife deep into his chest.

As soon as she yanked the blade back out she looked at us, deep fear in her eyes. "Move now!"

Cougar took off running, we followed. After about fifteen minutes of a dead sprint through the woods my lungs were on fire. I'm not in bad shape but I don't usually run uphill at full speed while several thousand feet above sea level. The air was thinner than I was used to which was starting to become an issue. Maybe I should take up jogging, Sam seemed to be doing a helluva a lot better than I was.

Coyote slowed down and I leaned against a tree, panting. "What the hell was that all about?" I managed to get out in between gasps.

"He was talking to her."

"How?"

"I'm not sure but.." A bone chilling howl cut her off. "She knows we're here."

Three more howls joined in and a whole crap ton of ravens started squawking somewhere nearby.

Cougar pulled a red feathered tomahawk out from under his shirt, he must have had some sort of weapons rig that I hadn't noticed for some reason. "No point in running now." He pointed at a fairly large flat spot, "You can use that spot."

The howls seemed to be getting closer, "Coyote? Be real nice if we knew what the hell those were. I'm guessing not the usual wolf you find in these parts."

"No." An eagle screamed somewhere and we looked up just as a huge frigging eagle of all things dove towards us, then flared it's wings, swooped back up and disappeared. As in gone, not flew away out of sight, just gone.

Roy had held it together pretty well until then, "What the fuck was that?" He kept spinning around in response to the howls, trying to target the not wolves we were hearing.

"That," I answered for her, "was an omen. I'm taking a shot in the dark here that this is the place to do whatever it is we're supposed to do?"

She was scared, and not just for us. Coyote usually doesn't do scared, she does angry, belligerent, cocky and nervous. I'd never seen her scared. She knew something about what was going to happen, I watched as she shoved the fear down, she turned away from me and as she did I saw it. The reason she'd been playing things so close, holding on to information she'd usually share, why Cougar was so pissed off. She didn't think she'd make it out of this. Oh hell no.

"What did you see?" I asked.

She stopped moving, she knew what I was asking "Not the time. I need you."

"You know I'll help, but.."

When she looked back I knew there was no point in arguing. I knew because she'd made her choice, just like I had over and over. "Damn it Coyote!"

"Dean, Sam, Roy, Leaping Deer is fighting us in two worlds. Those howls, they are not wolves. They are Spirits of men who are still alive. She will send both the Spirits and the men at us. It doubles her forces. We can't fight them as we are now."

"You need our Spirits too," Sam said.

"Yes, they will return to you if we succeed. If not..."

"We die."

"Possibly, or you'll be wondering the world without a Spirit."

It says something about my life that the first thing that came to mind was; really? Again? Great.

"I'm pretty sure you guys told me to make sure I kept my soul where it was at some point," Roy nervously pointed out.

"Yeah, well things change. Sam?"

"This isn't possession we're talking about, right?" He clarified, which also says something rather disturbing about our lives.

"No, your Spirit will fight the other Spirits, hopefully win. Meanwhile we have to fight the physical bodies of the men until she shows herself and I take her out which will end the spell."

I had no idea how well that would go, "Well that's a new twist. Do what you have to."

"Guys!" Roy shouted as a huge brown wolf came barreling towards us. He shot an arrow at it. It was a perfect shot, hit the wolf between the eyes and soared right through the wolf's head and out the other side. The wolf kept coming, there was no blood. The wolf hadn't even flinched. Cougar lunged forward and brought the tomahawk down on it's back. It shrieked in pain, then a red and green glowing cloud surrounded it and we heard a agony filled human scream come from the woods. The wolf flickered a few times then exploded into a mass of of multicolored bits of light and faded. Roy pretty much lost it at that point and staggered back. "Did you just..."

"Yes." Cougar wasn't the least bit proud of what he'd just done and it showed. "Him or I. It's the cost of fighting evil."

"I can't.."

"Don't have time for this," I interrupted. "Roy, pull it together! Coyote, if he's up in the trees will he be out of range of whatever you're doing?"

"Yes."

"Good, Roy! Look at me." He was still staring at the space where the wolf had been. I grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him. He finally got his eyes on me instead of empty air, "You, trees, cover fire. Got it?"

"Ye..yeah."

"Good, go. Shoot anything that looks human. Move when you have to." He nodded, ran to the nearest tree and started climbing.

"Sam and I are used to shit like this, he's not. He'll be safer up there. Sam? In or out?"

"In."

I figured he'd say that after seeing the wolf explode. We'd heard at least three wolves, that didn't mean that was all there were. Throw in another five or six humans, plus an evil shaman and we'd definitely need more than just us. Sure we'd taken out a few people already but we'd gotten lucky finding the traps and reversing the ambush on the first batch and the second batch were just people. Wolves that you have to hit with blessed weapons coming at you while you try to fend off a bunch of people on top of that is a whole other ball game. Coyote drew a quick circle on the flat piece of ground and started doing a weird shuffle dance while singing and tossing herbs from her pouches into the air.

"Concealing spell, it will confuse the Spirits," Cougar explained.

The song she was singing shifted, Cougar grabbed Sam's hand, sliced a small cut into Sam's finger, I held out my hand, he did the same thing then sliced his finger. Coyote reached her hand out and Cougar wiped some of his blood on her hand, Sam and I copied him. Coyote closed her hand and the oddest feeling ever came over me.


	18. Just When You Think You Know Everything

Now, my soul's been sent to Hell, tortured, almost became a demon, rescued, shoved back into a months old corpse, mangled by angels, actually turned into a demon, purified and then slowly corrupted by the Father of Murder's Mark that made me immortal, then healed from that. It's been through a lot. Sam's soul hasn't had it much better. I sort of expected a wrenching, tearing, agonizing pain when Coyote did whatever she was going to do but it was nothing like that. Maybe the Natives just have nicer magic, or my Warrior Spirit isn't the same as a soul, whatever the reason I definitely preferred the experience over all the other times my soul's been separated from me. This internal warmth spread through me, almost like I'd just had a shot of really expensive bourbon and I felt bigger, not physically but like I was part of something greater. Maybe whatever Coyote was doing was bringing me some sort of enlightenment, which was damned amusing to think about for a second or two until the warmth faded and this pressure started building in my chest. It wasn't painful, not really, but something definitely wanted out. Coyote's chanting changed again, the pressure grew and the space in front of me started to glow, same with Cougar and Sam. Her voice grew louder, her dancing got faster then she threw her head back and brought her hands together in front of her chest. What followed that wasn't just a clapping sound, I was pretty sure the rumble of thunder that seemed to roll through the forest was somehow linked with what she just did. A huge black wolf stepped out of my chest, I felt this really odd sucking feeling deep inside me and that's when things got weird.

I was on two feet while being on four paws, I could feel wind rustling through what was left of my fur at the same time I felt it on my hands. An even larger white wolf stepped out of Sam's chest, it's fur was streaked with black and it had several old, healed scars on it. A cougar that had to be the most massive version of a cougar anyone could imagine stepped from Cougar's chest. It glowed pure white and had some seriously huge teeth. I looked back down at the black wolf that was my Spirit, Sam's scars had all healed. Mine? Well let's just say if I saw a dog that looked like my wolf did I'd call the cops on whoever owned it.

It had more scars then fur, a lot of them were open and bleeding. Buried under the new wounds were layers and layers of whip marks, knife wounds and burns. It turned it's head and looked at me, the eyes were red tinted yellow and tired. Sam's wolf and Cougar's cougar had already taken a few steps and were crouching down, waiting for something to come at them. Mine just stood there, like it didn't have the energy to move. At least it did until Sam's wolf snarled at another, smaller grey wolf that had appeared and seemed to be heading straight for him. My wolf went from exhausted to straight out rabid in half a second. It lunged at the grey wolf, knocking it off it's paws and straight into a tree. I felt it when they hit the tree, I felt the teeth of the grey wolf ripping into my skin and I tasted the blood when my wolf ripped it's throat clean out. This was going to be confusing as all hell.

Coyote had opened her eyes after calling our Spirits out, she saw my wolf take out the grey one and almost stopped doing her odd shuffling dance, which probably would have been bad. I didn't know which was worse, the complete surprise on her face at how bad it looked or the look of sorrow that followed. Then her eyes met mine and what I saw t topped the other two for things I didn't need to see. Pity laced love, I hate pity. I didn't know if she was pitying me because of what I had been through or what but it didn't matter. I make my choices, however stupid they may end up being but they're my choices. I live with what comes after, always have, always will. Before I could get too pissed off about it four wolves, another cougar and a bobcat came at us along with a a whole slew of war cries from the people they belonged to and, judging by the volume, a few of their friends had come with them.

The wolves were varying shades of browns and greys, they looked more like the usual wolves you see pictures of. The bobcat went straight for the large coyote that had appeared out of nowhere about ten feet away from Coyote, which was a stupid move on it's part. Cougar's cougar didn't wait. It took one jump, landed on the bobcat and I thought that was the end of that till the other cougar joined in and knocked him off the bobcat. Sam's wolf and mine stood side by side and waited for the other wolves to come at us but they stopped about twenty feet away and started shaking their heads while pawing at their eyes.

"That confusion thing she did?" I asked Cougar who winced in pain, his cougar had taken another hit.

"Yes. It won't last long though."

"How do we...never mind."

Our wolves seemed to know what to do and split apart to come at the four from opposite sides. Then an arrow flew by and a scream came from behind me. I spun and saw a guy with one of Roy's arrows sticking out of his chest stagger and fall over about four feet away from Coyote's back, he had a knife in his hand. I have no idea why they weren't using guns but I was damn happy about it. The Spirits and screaming had all been a distraction, well until now. Now they broke cover and came at us, give me an enemy running straight into my gun every time. I went to fire at one guy when a burning pain sliced across my arm just as howl came from where the wolves were. It was so damn intense that I lost my grip on the gun just as the guy I'd been about to shoot lunged at me with a huge ass knife. I jumped back when the taste of blood hit my mouth again along with the feel of my teeth wrapped around a furry neck. Oh yeah, this was going to be really damn complicated. My arm still worked, thankfully, so I managed to pull the tomahawk out which I'd stashed where I usually put my machete and took a swing at him. He wasn't expecting that and ducked out of the way just as another guy came from my right screaming and aiming for my head with a damn sword. I got the tomahawk up fast enough to catch his blade redirect it, then aim a left cross for his face. It hit but didn't seem to do much to him. He brought his sword back up high, I went low and took a chunk out of his stomach, that got his attention. I didn't have time to finish him off since the first guy came back at me just as my breath somehow got knocked out of me even though no one had hit me. I dropped, rolled away and saw my wolf pinned underneath one of the bigger enemy wolves. Mine was snapping at the other's neck and raking his back claws along belly of the brown wolf. The brown wolf snarled and drove down towards my wolf's neck, Sam's wolf was busy with the other two wolves but spotted what was going on, literally jumped over them and tackled the enemy wolf away from mine. Mine righted itself and got in between the remaining two and growled so loud my rib cage was rattling. They froze and Sam's wolf ripped the hell out of the one it'd tackled while hideous, gut wrenching screams came from the woods again. That was the second time that'd happened and I'm not a real big believer in coincidence. I knew what they were up to.

"Roy! Take out the people in the woods!"

If we could take out the Spirits that'd be one less threat to us and make it a helluva a lot easier to concentrate on the physical fighting. I didn't know where Roy was or if he'd even spotted the people hiding out, hell I didn't even know if he'd heard me then the cougar screeched and started squirming like something was stuck in it's back. Cougar's cougar didn't wait to see if it'd explode and went for the choke hold that cats always use. Sam's wolf looked up from it's kill and snarled in the general direction of the remaining wolves and I didn't know what had happened to the bobcat by then. The last two wolves lunged towards ours just as the ground became covered with snakes.

All of us, people and Spirits alike jumped. I don't care what world you're in, you see snakes, you move. Somehow Coyote had managed to stay free of the fighting, not sure why or how but I noticed no snakes were inside the circle she'd drawn where she was still chanting and dancing. Fake snakes then, I was about to start slicing their heads off with the tomahawk when a frigging flock of some kind of falcon just appeared out of nowhere and dove straight for the snakes.

The snakes vanished, the falcons broke off and vanished into the trees and we all sort of stared at each other for a second, "Take that bitch!" Coyote shouted into the woods. "How many more lives are you going to lose today? Well?"

Another yelp came from the forest, then the sounds of something crashing through trees followed by a thump, then silence. I heard some weird bird calls and the remaining people along with the wolves backed off and four guys walked towards us, behind them was a woman. She was in full Native dress like Coyote but had the long, feathered headress trailing down behind her. Next to her two guys were carrying Roy who was tied up, gagged and looked knocked out cold. "I guess I should ask you the same question sister." The woman said. She was shorter than Coyote, her skin was not nearly as dark as most of the Natives I'd seen and she had blue eyes. There was no way she was pure Native, no way in hell.

They dropped Roy then tossed his bow on the ground next to him. One of the men kneeled down and put a knife against his throat, "He's rather skilled," Leaping Deer stated, "But he showed himself to follow your order."

Somehow things like that always end up being my fault. Worst part was neither Sam or I had a clear shot, thanks to the guys shielding her. Of course my gun was still on the ground so I guess it didn't really matter.

"Why are you fighting me Sister Running Coyote? This is what's right for our people."

She had that feel, the psychos always do. They act all nice and polite even when they're sticking blades into you.

"Our people?" Coyote replied, "You're not even a pure blood Indian."

"And yet here I stand, surrounded by proud Warriors while you have three white men and your childhood friend. You may have the skin tone and the heritage but we know what you are pretender. You rejected us, rejected your heritage, refused to take any Native man to your bed, still do. You're a white man's whore, filled with greed and disgust of your own kind. Your tribe knows that, the others know that which is why you stand here outnumbered and alone."

I sure as hell wasn't going to stand for that, "Watch it bitch!" My wolf's snarl added a nice extra emphasis.

"You reek of evil and despair," she shot back, "Look at your Spirit. That is what she chooses over us."

"Show me yours or shut the hell up," I replied. "I doubt it's pure seeing as how you've been on a nice murdering spree."

"I don't answer to you."

I was about to keep egging her on when Coyote took the words out of my mouth.

"And I sure as hell don't have to answer to you. You stand there, hiding behind your so called warriors, using a helpless white man as a hostage while lecturing me about being a pretender? You're planning to kill thousands of innocent people, people who did nothing to us in some sick attempt to bring about a better life for us? You're nothing but a sick, twisted, half breed who plays at being an Indian."

"So arrogant, so blind. It's a pity, I could have used you. Kill them."

Their wolves lunged, her guys lifted their bows and a deafening screech from the sky just about made all our ears bleed. I looked up and there was that same pure white eagle I'd seen all those years ago in the vision and it was diving right towards Leaping Deer.


	19. Spirits, Gods and Warriors

The guys in front of us dropped their bows and tried to cover their ears, Sam and I being used to plenty of supernatural inspired piercing sounds moved. Sure the eagle was loud, but not as loud as an angel's true voice or the constant screams in Hell. I dove for my gun, rolled up and into a crouch and started firing. There were five guys left from the original group that attacked us, six with Leaping Deer and the two enemy wolves. I counted four guys from the first group laying on the ground that Sam or Cougar had already killed or knocked out. The immediate threat was the guy over Roy who I was about to shoot when Roy brought one of his knees up into the guy's face, knocking him sideways. Roy did that cool move you see where the guy laying on the ground throws his legs out and somehow jumps right up into a standing position. As soon as he was vertical he brought his fists together on top of the guy's head, knocking him out and yanked the knife out of the guy's hands as he fell. Then he grabbed his bow and bolted, clearing space for us to take some shots.

The eagle was coming fast for Leaping Deer who started doing her own shuffle dance and singing and a huge frigging bear jumped out of the chest of one of the guys standing near her. It stood up on it's hind legs and took a swipe at the eagle who spun away. Since the eagle had stopped screeching the guys were able to start bringing their bows back up, this wasn't going to go well. I started firing and running, "Coyote! Move!" I dropped two guys with shots to their stomachs, I saw two more go down thanks to Sam, then I had to start dodging arrows. Sam screamed, so did Cougar and suddenly I was on the ground feeling like all my ribs had just been broken. Sam's wolf had a huge gash in it's side and I noticed there was only one enemy wolf left. The other enemy wolf started running away so Sam's wolf decided to snarl at the bear. Cougar's cougar's face was mangled, and the bear had four huge claw marks running down one side. My wolf was laying several feet away getting back on it's feet. All of them were focused on the bear. The eagle screeched again, Leaping Deer's men didn't react as strongly this time. I brought my gun up but Cougar moved into my line of fire and Coyote wasn't far behind.

Cougar had a huge knife in one hand and the tomahawk in the other. I have no idea how he was moving as fast as he was but he seemed to be glowing, maybe he was pulling on his Spirit. Coyote was glowing too and was being followed by that large coyote that had popped up at the beginning of the fight. They moved through the remaining guys like knife wielding tornadoes, leaving a trail of blood and screaming men behind them. My wolf jumped on the back of the bear. It reached a huge paw up and clawed at my wolf's flank leaving several claw marks down it's side, all of which I felt and just about blacked out. The cougar lunged at the bear's face, causing it to spin right and Sam's wolf went for one of the bear's back legs, it's teeth connected and tore out a chunk. The bear roared in pain, got a good hold on my wolf and I felt my claws and teeth dig in as the bear tried to throw it off.

The last of Leaping Deer's men bailed, apparently they weren't as loyal as she'd thought. Coyote and Cougar were finishing up the last of their battles. The shadowy coyote that hadn't seemed to be doing much lifted it's head, howled then lunged at Leaping Deer, the eagle pivoted on it's wing and dove straight down at the same time. Our two wolves and the cougar simultaneously went for the bear. Just before the coyote and eagle hit Leaping Deer she screamed something and I saw her throw a handful of herbs on the ground. A rattlesnake the size of a damn python appeared in front of Coyote and struck, it's fangs sank right into her face. She didn't even scream, just stiffened and dropped.

"No!" I started to run towards her but my wolf was faster and closer. It's head had jerked around in response to my shout. It changed direction mid stride, got it's teeth around the back of the snake's head, which tasted horrible, violently shook the snake a few times and flung it about ten feet away. Sam's wolf and the cougar collided with the bear just as an arrow took the guy who the bear had come from straight through the head. The bear's final roar shook the ground as it broke apart into fragments and exploded.

Leaping Deer looked at Coyote's motionless body, a triumphant grin broke out on her face and she started laughing. "Take that bi -" She didn't get to finish because the shadowy coyote ripped her throat out just as the eagle's talons slammed into her back. There wasn't any blood as her eyes rolled back and she started convulsing. The blood didn't start flowing until Cougar's tomahawk separated her head from her body.

I got to Coyote's side, her eyes were closed but underneath the lids I could see her eyes rolling from side to side in an erratic, panicky pattern. Her arms and legs jerked in response to something and she was whimpering. "Cougar! Help!"

Cougar started running to us but froze as my wolf started growling at him. "Dean?"

My wolf was still standing over Coyote, guarding her. It'd let me get next to her but as soon as Cougar had gotten within ten feet it's ears went back and it bared it's teeth.

"Uh, Cougar? Not sure what to do here."

Cougar backed up, the growls stopped but my wolf was still eyeing him. "He is your Spirit. He is acting on your feelings and true nature. You protect those you care for, so does he."

"That's great and all but how do I get him to stop?"

Cougar's cougar slunk several steps closer and got in between Cougar and my wolf. That couldn't be good. Cougar immediately started speaking in Lakota and his cougar sat down but didn't move from his spot. I figured a sitting cat was better than a cat ready to pounce.

"I don't know Lakota."

"You don't have to, he is you. Speak to him."

"Why haven't they gone back inside us?" Sam asked.

"She called them, they don't just jump back in on their own." Cougar answered, "I can put them back but what I need to do that is in the pouches around her neck. Dean, you need to calm him down."

You know, when I was growing up if you'd told me I would be having a conversation with my Warrior Spirit who was in the shape of a wolf and guarding a woman I had some pretty intense feelings for, I would have told you you were nuts. Sure, vamps and werewolves were real, so were ghosts, but wolfy Warrior Spirits that you talk to? Yeah right. So add this to the list of things I never thought I'd do, or see. It's pretty scary how long that list has grown over the years.

"Okay." I put my hand on it's or rather my head. I half expected my hand to just go straight through but it didn't, maybe because it was my Warrior Spirit it felt solid. "Hey there, um wolf me. Cougar's a good guy, not sure why you got your back up about him but you need to let him help out here."

It's growl softened and it's right ear pivoted towards me. I just hoped it wasn't as stubborn as I am, which was probably a stupid hope. "Yeah, I know we care about her, I know she's hurt and you're just trying to do your job but he won't hurt her. C'mon, his Spirit was helping you fight the bad guys. Remember?"

I ran my hand over it's neck, felt all the wounds and scars and each one I touched set in motion a chain of memories and emotions that I'd tried damn hard to block out over the years. Talk about getting in touch with your past, I was physically touching my emotional scars. There ain't no way to ignore them at that point. They were so intense that I couldn't control what I was feeling, the last thing I wanted to do was break down in front of Cougar or Roy but I didn't really have a choice.

The wolf's other ear went up, it started to shake and whimper and it's massive head turned towards me. It's red tinted yellow eyes looked so lost, so done in and that exhaustion resonated deep within my bones. I knew exactly what it was feeling, I'd been feeling it for months. "Hey, take it easy, we've got this. How about you go lay down next to her? You'll be right there if something goes wrong. All right?"

Believe it or not it actually nodded at me before moving to the side and lying down, but not before it shot another half hearted snarl at Cougar.

"I think we're good."

Cougar slowly walked forward but my wolf just set it's head on it's paws and kept an eye on him. Cougar finally got up close, then knelt down and took a closer look at Coyote. "It's a spirit sickness. Wait." He started rummaging around in the pouches that she had hanging around her neck.

"The bitch is dead, that should stop the spell right?"

"This isn't a spell, it's more like a curse. If she survives until sunrise the curse will fade."

"If? What do you mean if?" I didn't like the sound of that and neither did my wolf or Sam's for that matter. They both growled.

Cougar was rapidly pulling various herbs and stones from her pouches, "Leaping Deer was rather in skilled in the use of spirit harming magic. I can make something that will help sustain her and possibly leach out the sickness but she has to fight what it is she's seeing and feeling."

"So this spirit sickness is making her hallucinate?" Roy asked.

"In a way yes. It's hard to explain and I need to get to work on this."

"What can we do to help?" I wasn't going to let her do this alone.

Cougar paused in his prep work, he looked at my wolf, then back at me and there was an immense amount of sympathy on his face. "You? Nothing. Sam and Roy can help."

"What? Why?"

"Dean, I am not saying this to hurt you or insult you but your presence will only make the sickness stronger. Your darkness will feed it. Look at your Spirit, see that small white patch on it's chest?"

"Yeah, and?"

"And at one point you're wolf would have looked a lot more like Sam's. I'm sorry Dean but the best way for you to help is to stay away."

I had no idea how to respond to that. I stared at my wolf, who stared right back then looked at Coyote and made this sad, soft whine.


	20. A Man and His Wolf

"We can't stay out here all night." I think Roy had reached the limit of shocks he could process, he looked numb but he raised a good point.

"Agreed but the hotel is not the best place to do what I have to," Cougar replied, "Between the smoke, the chanting and whatever she does people will probably call the cops."

"Jim's house," Sam said, "If he's gone we can use it. It's closer than the hotel too."

I looked around at the guys who were groaning in pain and waking up from being knocked out. "We need to get going either way." I pulled my phone out of my pocket, it had miraculously escaped damage but there wasn't much reception. "Do what you need to start helping her but keep our Spirits out until we get back to the river. I'll take point since I'm figuring you're carrying her. The ones that ran may have called some friends."

Cougar nodded, "Good point. Can you move away please?"

"Yeah," I stood up and started walking away, my wolf stayed where it was, "C'mon buddy, let him do his thing. You heard him."

It took a minute but it got up and followed me, Sam looked like he was going to join us but I just turned away. I had other things to worry about than my feelings being hurt. I spotted one of the guys who was waking up from being knocked out and headed his direction. "Let's do what we do best wolf, be the guy no one wants to fuck with."

The wolf stopped walking and I looked down at it. It apparently knew which guy I was planning to talk to because it was staring straight at him, head held low, fur standing straight up and with all it's teeth showing but was completely silent. Somehow that was even more unnerving then when it was full on growling at Cougar. The guy went as pale as a Native could and started whimpering. I had to give it credit for style. Since the wolf was doing such a good job I figured I should add the finishing touch. "Good boy," I said as I patted it's back, "He moves an inch, kill him." That was when the low, rib cage rattling growl started up. What can I say, my wolf knows how to make an impression.

I resumed my walk to the guy, who's wide eyes were rapidly jumping back and forth between the wolf and I, and squatted down next to him. "Here's the deal. Not sure if you guys have phones with you but I'm heading downhill to call for help. I could just finish you all off but I'm trying to stop doing that, bad for my soul as you can see. So, cops come, you don't know anything and you convince all your buddies up here that they don't know anything either. If we get heat, I'll track you down and finish what I started." I pointed at my wolf, "He knows your Spirit, pretty sure I can use that as a way to find you in one world or the other. This isn't my first rodeo on the wild and crazy side of things. Most of those scars came from something a whole lot scarier than Leaping Deer was. Get my point?"

"Y..yes." He wouldn't say anything to anyone. I'd be surprised if he actually stayed to help any of the other guys. I was pretty sure he'd take off at the first chance he got.

"Good."

I stood back up, looked at the wolf. "Let's go."

I guess it felt my threat was lacking because it jumped right at him and landed with it's paws on either side of him. He yelled, threw his arms over his face and started babbling in some Native language. It wasn't Lakota but I was pretty sure he was begging for his life. My wolf snapped and snarled at him for a few seconds then made this weird huffing sound, took it's paw, smacked the guy across the face and trotted away. My Warrior Spirit had just bitch slapped a guy who was begging for his life. Now that was pretty damn cool.

"Wow," Sam said. I turned around and saw he was looking at my wolf in utter disbelief,"Did it really just do that?"

"I know right?"

"Your Warrior Spirit's kind of a dick."

"Effective though."

Coyote screamed and I had to stop myself from running back to her. This was going to be worse than watching Sam detox from demon blood.

"Everyone back away." Cougar ordered. Roy and Sam took several steps back, I just started walking downhill. Sam and Cougar could carry her, Roy would keep them safe but I had to get out of range of her screams. If I didn't I'd just do something stupid and make things worse, like I always do.

I didn't get too far before my wolf went from walking beside me to standing in front of me. "What is it?" He didn't say anything, of course, but looked behind me. I looked over my shoulder and Sam was standing there. I'd been too preoccupied and hadn't heard him which was bad, especially since I was going to take point on the way back down.

"He's done doing what he can for her up here. We're ready to move. You okay?"

I ignored the question, he knew the answer, "All right. Let's go."

Sam looked over his shoulder and waved his arm at the other two. Cougar had Coyote on his back, piggy back style. He'd tied her hands together, put them around his neck and found a piece of rope long enough to wrap around their waists to help keep her close to his back so her weight wouldn't pull him backwards. It was a pretty clever idea actually. He was holding onto her legs and moving like there wasn't a six foot tall woman strapped to his back.

"When you guys need to switch who's carrying her let me know."

Cougar nodded. Sam's wolf ranged out to the woods on our right, the cougar faded into the woods on the left and me and my wolf started moving downhill again. Going down took a lot less out of me, probably because I wasn't sprinting. I angled south of where we'd taken out the second group of guys and didn't notice any new tracks or traps we missed. It took us about thirty minutes to find the main trail again. I decided to use the trail as a guide back to the river and not actually follow it. No point in making it easier for anyone to find us. My wolf crisscrossed in front of me the whole way so technically it had taken point. It popped up in front of me once we'd found the main trail, stopped, sat down and looked up at me.

"What?" I sort of felt like I was talking to Lassie.

It turned it's head towards the trail, let out a low barking sound, looked back up then laid down.

"Someone coming?"

It wagged it's tail so I held my hand up and heard the rest of them come to stop. "Someone's coming, or so the wolf says."

"Since we're stopping anyway Cougar, let me take her," Sam offered.

I looked back and saw that Cougar was panting and his shirt was covered in sweat. I'd set a pretty quick pace to get us as far away from possible threats as I could and Cougar had kept up without a single word. Guy was tough.

"Thank you."

They shifted her to Sam's back, she was still twitching and her face was contorted with pain but she'd been quiet. I wasn't sure if she somehow knew we were on the move or it was because of whatever Cougar had done. The swishing of bike tires caught my attention. Sam ducked behind some trees and the rest of us squatted down and watched as a group of five mountain bikers flew down the trail not more than twenty feet away from us. Once they passed I shot a quick glance at my wolf who was standing again.

"Coast clear?"

It nodded. I took a quick look at my phone and saw I had service again, may as well get the search teams started. I really didn't want more deaths on my conscious.

I dialed 911. "911. What's your emergency?"

"I found a body in the woods, about three miles north of the Black Rock trail in a clearing. Send someone." That'd give them a general direction to start looking. I hung up and led them north, paralleling the trail until the river came into view. It took about two hours, Sam and Cougar switched off carrying Coyote twice along the way. We didn't come across anyone else along the way which was a nice break. Once we got to the edge of the river we stopped. "Cougar? Time to put these guys back where they belong."

"Yes it is."

Sam's wolf and Cougar's cougar materialized out of the woods and stood in front of my brother and Cougar. My wolf sat down, tilted it's head to one side and gave me an odd look. I sort of got the impression it thought that I was banishing it or something, like it had failed me in some way which was why I was kicking it back inside me.

"Hang on a minute."

"Okay," Cougar replied.

I crouched down in front of my wolf and put my hand on the small white patch on it's chest. Just like when I touched it's scars memories hit me but the emotions that came with them seem dulled. Memories of Mom, Sam and I when we were being stupid kids and having fun, times at Bobby's place, the few times Dad managed to be at Bobby's with us and we barbecued, the one time we shot off fireworks for Fourth of July, stuff like that. I would have thought that the good times would hit me as hard as the bad but I felt like I was watching them through someone else's eyes, like they weren't really mine. They felt distant and weirdly empty to me. Things from another life, another time.

I pulled my hand away, the wolf leaned it's head on my shoulder and whimpered. "Guess I haven't taken real good care of us have I? Maybe it's time I work on that. Look, I can't exactly have you walking next to me in the middle of a city. You did your job, took care of someone that was going to cause a lot of pain, kicked some serious ass, but it's time to go back. We got to get somewhere safe so she can heal up. Got it?"

It stood up, looked at Cougar and did that shake thing dogs do when they're loosening up or whatever. I figured that meant it was okay with the plan. Cougar started chanting and that warmth spread through my chest again. The wolf tensed as it became more transparent. Just as the warmth became almost unbearable it jumped directly at me, I felt that sucking feeling again as it's head went through my chest and it disappeared. Weirdest thing ever in a long list of weird. When I looked behind me again Sam's wolf and the cougar were both gone. We crossed the river, laid Coyote across the back seat of her car and headed to Jim's place. Coyote had to survive another eighteen or so hours before the spell would fade and there didn't seem to be a damn thing I could do to help.


	21. The Weight

Roy decided to ride with Cougar which left Sam with me. Cougar took one way back to Jim's, I took another just in case anyone decided to try to follow us, Sam kept an eye on his phone from texts from either Roy or Cougar that they had picked up any tails and I kept an eye on my rear view mirror.

It didn't take long for me to see the random looks of wondering if he should talk or not he was giving me while waiting for the phone to ring, "Later Sam, a whole lot later."

It was starting to sink in to both of us just what we'd seen and been a part of. Sam would probably start to get all philosophical or something since most of the times we deal with a pagan anything it's usually killing people and so our job is to kill it. We hadn't talked too much about Native spirits and all that after that vision all those years ago, seeing as how I was on my way to Hell and we were a bit more concerned about that. This was a whole other side of things that we'd never really dealt with before. Sure we know about souls and ghosts but they usually don't wander around doing things while the person they belong to is still alive and kicking. Then there was the fact that my Warrior Spirit had looked like it had been tortured by a psychopathic serial killer. That hit way too close to home. Sure, I'd known how bad I gotten with the Mark and all that, but knowing it and seeing a physical manifestation of it aren't quite the same thing. Especially when what I'd been looking at was me, just in a four legged form. No wonder my nightmares had made Coyote sick to her stomach.

Thankfully Sam decided to leave off asking questions and all I had to listen to was the radio, which worked until Silent Lucidity happened to pop up on the station that was playing. Crap. After everything she'd done for me over the years and taking on the burden of helping with the nightmares I couldn't do a damn thing for her and the reason I couldn't was my stupid choices. If she didn't make it through...

"Dean, stop."

"Stop what?"

Exasperated really didn't cover the look he had on his face, it was closer to disgusted. "You know what. I see it on your face already. You're trying to find some screwed up reason her being hurt is your fault. Stop it. She's tough, Cougar knows what he's doing and I get the distinct feeling that she prepped for this. Notice how quick he knew what to go for in those pouches. Last time I checked he wasn't a shaman. She said she'd had visions about this and she was way too tense for her to not have a clue something was going to go bad. So stop."

"I know. I saw it, right before that last attack. She was scared Sam. You know her, not much scares her. I should have.."

"What? Neither of us really had a clue what was going on out there. We were her warriors, we sure as hell weren't calling the shots on this one. She had to stop Leaping Deer, she made her choice. Just like we do."

"And this is why I hate going in blind on this stuff! If we'd had more time, more info we could have been a lot more useful. She could have called earlier." Even I knew that sounded stupid, I'd been the last person she would have wanted to call.

"Sure, going in to that situation while the Mark was still on you would have been so much better."

"You don't have to be a dick about it."

"When you stop being an idiot, I'll stop being a dick."

Unfortunately I didn't have a good comeback for that one so I just kept my trap shut the rest of the way to Jim's house. Cougar had already gotten there and was waiting for us. We parked and he and Roy got out.

"Any chance he left the place unlocked or we have a key?" I asked.

"Not sure, we just pulled up," Cougar answered.

Roy started walking towards the door, "I'll check it out. If that upstairs window is still open I'll go that way if I have to." He tried the door, it was locked so he jogged around the back.

I didn't really need to watch him so I focused on Coyote who wasn't looking any better. Her face and shirt were covered in sweat and her hands were balled up into fists. "How is she?"

Cougar shook his head. That cold, down to business look he'd had since they'd shown up the day before was gone. He, like Coyote earlier, was scared and looking pretty damn helpless. "I wish I knew. I can't see spirits like she can."

"How did you know what to do earlier?" Sam asked.

"She told me and I've spent years helping Shamans. She had a vision that warned her to guard her spirit well. It didn't say exactly why of course, but she listened and prepared. We went through all the books Rising Dove had left her and came up with a few things. Shamans don't usually write their secrets down but since she started training so late he feared he would leave us before he could teach her everything."

"So what, you burn incense, chant and we wait?"

Cougar's eyes locked onto mine, there was a rather large warning in them. "Yes. That is the best we can do. This is not your.."

That was not the answer I wanted, "World. I know! Personally, I'm thinking your world kind of sucks."

"Dean!" Sam snapped.

"Uh guys?" Roy said from the front door, "It's open."

There had to be answers somewhere, "Sam, you help Cougar, I'll grab your laptop and see what I can find. There has to be something out there."

That would be when Cougar grabbed my jacket and shoved me up against the car, "You are not a Shaman," he looked way too much like his namesake right about then, except with smaller teeth. "You cannot speak the language and you do not know our ways. Your spirit is corrupted. You will learn nothing and if you try to help you will most likely kill her. Stay away or I'll make good on my earlier statement. Are we clear?"

"I can't just sit here and do nothing."

"Then leave. It's what you're best at isn't it?"

Sam barely caught my fist before it nailed Cougar in the face. "Dean! Not helping! Calm down!"

"Shouldn't you be letting him help her instead of picking a fight?" Roy asked.

"Sam, get off me."

"You good?"

"Yeah." I dropped my hands, Cougar backed away and I walked away. He was right, I knew it but it didn't make things any easier, not when I can remember the day her and I first met like it was yesterday. I'd decided to take the weekend off and drop by Bobby's, hadn't seen him in a few months. I was well on my way to a good, comfy buzz when this Charger pulled up and she got out. She looked too clean and too sane to be a hunter but she opened the door like she'd been there before.

"Bobby? You home?" She said as she walked in.

"He's out back," I answered from the couch. She took a good look at me, I returned the favor but in a much more cocky, early twenty something, hot chick just walked in the door kind of way. She didn't seem all that impressed by that.

"All right, I'll just wait in the kitchen then."

I scooted towards one end of the couch and patted the cushion next to me, "There's room right here." Yeah, I was that blunt.

"Thanks but your ego and testosterone seem to have taken over the entire living room. I'm good."

"You don't have to be so harsh, I was just being friendly."

"Uh huh. You drive that Impala?"

I remember thinking I might have a chance to save some of my dignity, "Yeah." The back door to the kitchen creaked just before she answered.

"Poor thing, I feel sorry for her. A high class girl like that being forced to share space with a low class guy like you. Tragic really."

I hadn't heard Bobby laugh that loud or that long before. He staggered into the living room while laughing his ass off, "Sorry Dean, should have warned you. Coyote's not exactly the type of woman you should hit on. You're lucky she didn't just deck you right off."

"I figured since he was in your house he was a friend of yours and decided to be polite." Then she smiled and I was hooked. Sure she'd just shot me down hard and fast but she'd done it with some serious style and that smile gave me a glimpse into who she really was. It took her a bit longer to warm up to me but after a few beers, some more good natured insults and Bobby making sure the conversation didn't get awkward she stayed a lot longer than she'd planned that day. When she finally left we'd gotten close enough to exchange some pretty interesting hugs and our numbers. I watched her pull away and started missing her before she even finished turned out of his driveway.

Bobby came down the steps and put his hand on my shoulder. "Son, if I was going to pick any woman for you, that's the one I'd pick. Call her." Then he squeezed my shoulder, nodded and went back inside.

I called a week or so later, asked where she was and if she wanted to hang out. She was pretty quick to say yes and we started this weird, complicated relationship that we both refused to really let develop. It had always been there before I'd written that letter to her, we both knew what was between us. We just chose not to pursue them. Now she was fighting for her life after helping me stay sane and the one place I wanted to be, right there next to her, was the last place I could be.

Jim's backyard was as empty as the rest of his house so I just sat down on the grass. I heard them get her into the house, the front door shut, then nothing other than the traffic sounds from the main road and a few birds. It was going to be a long ass day.


	22. Hidden Truths

I sat there and stared at the cinderblock wall for a few minutes pulling up all the memories I could of the times we'd had when I saw this weird shifting in the air to my left and I heard a high pitched, almost kid like voice inside my head.

"Why do you carry so many deaths?"

And out of the swirling, opaque spot of empty air next to me a rather large coyote appeared. It was darker than most coyotes and was probably close to what a hundred pound coyote would look like, although I doubted it actually weighed anything at all. Other than showing up out of thin air and being larger than life it looked pretty normal, until I saw it's eyes. They were all white, no pupils, nothing. I jumped back.

"What the! Coyote? Is that you?"

I swear it smiled, "Indeed, I am Coyote and Coyote is me."

"How are you out here?"

The voice in my head giggled, "Where else would I be?" .

Something wasn't right, "That spirit sickness make you spirit drunk?"

"Sickness? No, I am not sick. You are." It stretched out on the ground and rolled around in the grass for a second. When it stopped it was on it's back, all four feet chilling out in the air as it looked up at me with it's head cocked to one side.

"You're not Coyote, are you?"

It looked at it's paws, licked the right one then shot me a pretty goofy look, "I taste like Coyote. I look like Coyote. I think I am Coyote. But you are not who you think you are, unlike me. I look like me, you look like death."

This was starting to get annoying, "Look, who or whatever you are, I'm not really in the mood for this."

"Of course not." It rolled back up to it's stomach, crossed it's front paws over each other and looked way too much like a therapist. It had this expectant, understanding feel to it which reminded me of how Sam always looks at the beginning of all those conversations I try to avoid. "Why would you be? You are worried about she who you can't help because of all the deaths you carry. So, why do you carry them?"

"What are you talking about? Who or what are you?"

It sighed, in my head of course, "Why is that important? Who I am has nothing to do with you, like all those deaths you carry. They really have nothing to do with you either."

"What deaths? Why am I even talking to you?" I got up started to walk away but before I took a step it was sitting in front of me.

"Why indeed?"

"Seriously!" I turned around, it was right there again except this time it was bouncing up and down on it's front paws.

"This is fun!" It hopped up on it's back legs, put it's front paws on my shoulders and they felt solid. Then it licked my face and bounced back a few feet doing this excited puppy dance thing. "Play?"

"Uggh! Gross!" I was pretty sure I couldn't banish or exorcise it and Cougar was busy. "Okay, last time. Who are you? What do you want?"

It's ears drooped down and it stopped bouncing, "Aww, not playing?"

"No!"

"Fine."

Great, I'd made some sort of Native spirit sound mopey. Just what I needed.

"I am Coyote, just not her coyote. I am The Coyote." This time the voice sounded a lot older and much more serious. It sat down and curled it's tail around it's paws which made it look a lot more intelligent and serious than before.

"Like her guide?"

"Yes."

"Then why they hell are you out here? Shouldn't you be helping her? Or are you like all the other "gods" I've come across who like to watch people suffer." It wasn't so much how the coyote looked that told me I'd gone too far, it was the incredibly intense feeling of loss I coming from it.

"First of all, I am capable of doing more than one thing at a time and I am helping her. Secondly I am not a god, I am a guide. If I had the power that your god has my people would not have been nearly destroyed. Third, I am here because she asked it of me."

I hadn't expected that. "What?"

"Yes. Now Dean, answer my question. Why do you carry so many deaths?"

"I don't understand." For some reason I felt like I needed to sit down, my legs were weak and I had no idea why. The coyote's eyes stayed locked onto mine as I sank down. They may have been pure white but I couldn't look away, no matter how hard I tried.

"All of the ones you've lost, why do you carry them with you? Why do you not let them go?"

"Forget them? Why the hell would I?"

"I did not say forget them, I said let them go."

The longer it looked at me the more my control started to slip. It reminded me of how I felt when Cas first showed up, that piercing way he read my thoughts and burrowed into the dark corners of my brain but this was worse, way worse. It was looking for something inside my head. "What are you doing?"

"Answer my question."

Words started coming out of my mouth but I didn't seem to be consciously thinking them, "Because they're my fault." It wasn't controlling me though, it was more like things I never said were trying to force themselves out.

"Why?"

"I messed up somehow. I always do, I failed them." It was getting harder to breathe, my eyes started filling up with tears, I was losing it and I couldn't stop it.

"How did you fail them?"

I tried to get away somehow but I felt stuck and weak, my legs wouldn't move, "I should have been better, they were there because of me. I made them."

"Did you hold a gun to their heads? Threaten them if they did not do what you said?"

"No but if I hadn't asked, if they hadn't known me, if..."

''If, if, if. Did these people not have wills of their own?"

It's eyes started to go from white to grey, "No, they did."

"So they chose to do these things that ended in their deaths, yes?"

"Yes but.." I knew it made sense but it didn't matter, it was still my fault.

It's eyes narrowed slightly, "How long have you thought these things?"

"I don't know, forever I guess."

It hissed and pulled back, "I see." It's eyes went from grey to black but not demon black. There were small flecks of light inside the blackness, like looking at the night sky out in the middle of nowhere and my mind started spinning, I saw each death as it happened, each one, Ellen, Jo, Bobby all of them going by faster and faster. All the sorrow and pain I felt at each one smashed into me, fresh as if I was standing in front of their pyres and lighting the fires all over again. "Stop! Please!" I couldn't handle it then everything froze as something I'd forgotten filled my mind and then the fear hit.

I'm not talking the fear you get before a fight, or the fear you feel when worried about someone you love, I'm talking the fear a kid feels when they see something they can't explain. That ice bath, freeze your veins, piss your pants fear that immobilizes you, makes you bury your head in your hands and scream. It was that night. The night Mom died.

I was lying in my bed facing the door and I saw a black figure walk past, Azazel. He turned his head and I saw those eyes. Those eyes that destroyed our lives. It was just for a second but the evil I felt pouring from him froze me in place. Part of my brain screamed that I should tell Mom or Dad, but I couldn't move. Then I heard Mom's scream, I ran into the room and saw the flames. Dad shoved Sam into my arms, I ran outside with Sam and told myself over and over it was a dream or something until months later when Dad talked about the yellow eyed demon. I couldn't tell him, couldn't tell him that I'd seen Azazel and I buried it. I could have saved Mom if I had just gotten out of bed.

I heard my breath coming in gasps, my arms were wrapped around chest which was burning. "My fault, my fault..."

"No, it wasn't."

"I saw him! I could have..."

"That is not the whole story," The lights in the coyote's eyes moved faster, my head started pounding and a memory I never remembered having burst out of all that pain and guilt.

Azazel was standing over my bed, yellow eyes burning in the blackness. He was keeping me from moving, yelling or doing anything. I wanted to run and hide but I couldn't. "Well, well. Michael's perfect little vessel. It's all already there, programmed into you like a mindless pawn. The love, the loyalty, the desire to obey. All there, just waiting for you to grow up." That smarmy, arrogant smile crossed his face. "Too bad I can't lay a finger on you, can't have the wing patrol ruin all the fun we're going to have with Sam can I." He stared at me and got that sick, desperate look all demons get right before they start spilling blood or destroying lives. "But then I don't have to touch you do I. The big guy upstairs used to be so big on Original Sin, but that fell by the wayside with the shinier, nicer version he put out with Jesus and all that forgiveness crap. Hmmm, so much love. I can feel it, it's disgusting. Love conquers all right? Funny, people forget that love can so easily be corrupted. Be used to destroy instead of save. You know one of my favorite emotions Dean? Guilt." He rubbed his hands together like an excited kid with a new toy, "Guilt's so delicious, so easy to warp. Yes, I think that will work nicely." Then he leaned down and got right next to my ear. "It's all your fault Dean, what happens tonight, your fault. Your neighbor's dog dies? Your fault. Everything that ever happens will always be your fault."

I struggled against him, or tried. I couldn't talk but in my head I was yelling no over and over then he whispered something and I felt it change. Felt the guilt set in, burrowing into my mind.

"Can't have you remember all that now can I?" He said as he stood back up. Then he winked at me and walked out of the room. A few seconds later he walked past and raised his hand, blocking my memory of the whole conversation.

I lunged sideways and started dry heaving into the grass.


	23. When Nothing Is What You Believed

My heart felt like it was jack hammering against my lungs, my breaths were these short, hiccuping, uncontrolled gasps and I could barely hold myself up on all fours. Everything in my entire life was built on the guilt that Azazel had shoved down my throat. Obeying Dad without question, hunting, running to demons when Sam had died, the Mark, putting anything I ever wanted on hold to hunt that damned yellow eyed bastard, losing Lisa, staying away from Coyote. Each time I thought I failed in some way it had built on what he did, my original sin which hadn't been mine at all. I felt like I should be screaming at someone or something but I didn't know who or what that would be.

The worst part was that anger had always been my go to emotion to deal with the guilt but I couldn't find any to use. My whole existence was a result of a demon's manipulations, all the years I'd been fighting against them had been pointless. They'd owned me, played me and I didn't even know. How the hell was I going to deal with that?

I stopped trying to keep myself upright and just dropped onto the ground, every muscle I had was knotted up and I couldn't stop shaking. "S..Sam..."

The coyote nuzzled my cheek and disappeared. Next thing I knew the sliding glass door opened.

"Dean! Hey!"

"Sa..Sam, Azazel...he..." I couldn't get it out, just couldn't. The Mark had kept everything but hate and anger away for over a year and before that I'd gone pretty much numb after losing Kevin. Between seeing my wolf and the memories everything felt raw and fresh again.

Sam got his arm around my shoulders, "Azazel? What happened?"

"He...he..."

"All right, don't worry about talking. Try to breathe."

"Can't..." The night of the vision came back to me again, laying next to Coyote as she sang, stretching her already raw vocal chords to the limit, calming me. I tried to remember that song and how it felt. My heart started feeling less like a jack hammer and more like a guy pounding nails. I focused on that and things started to settle down.

"Everything's a lie Sam, everything. He made me like this, twisted me, they've always owned me, I lost years ago. I..I"

He pulled me upright, braced me against his chest so I wouldn't fall back over and wrapped his arm around me. "Back up. What set this off?"

"Coyote, not Coyote, Coyote but The Coyote, the guide one. Her guide." My brain was starting to function again even though nothing else was yet. "It was here, it showed me. Said that she asked it to talk to me."

"Okay."

I sounded insane, even to myself but he let me keep going, "It asked me why I carried all these deaths with me, why I don't let them go. Then it showed me, or maybe reminded me of something that..." I still didn't want to say it, even though I knew the reason why I didn't wasn't real. I was fucking four! What the hell was I supposed to do?

"Was it something that happened the night Mom died?"

"Yeah. He...I saw him, he came into my room."

Sam just waited.

"I..."

"You saw him before the fire?"

"Yeah. God Sam, I'm so sorry." It wasn't my fault, but it didn't matter. Why was I apologizing? I finally managed to get my head to move enough so I could see his face. He looked confused, which made sense but what didn't make sense was how calm he looked. He didn't seem the least bit worried about what I was going to say. I'm talking about the worst night of our lives and he was simply waiting for me to keep talking. How could he not be upset? Had he really let go of all that? I know he didn't actually remember it but still.

"I saw him before, I never told Dad or anyone. I thought it was a dream at first. Then Dad started talking about the yellow eyed demon and I knew what I'd seen was real but that's not all of it. Azazel blocked the rest. The Coyote broke through it somehow."

"What happened?"

"He...he told me that I was Michael's perfect vessel and that I'd already been programmed for the job. All the love, the loyalty, the whole obey at all costs thing it was all there. Then he said he couldn't lay a finger on me because the angels would show up so he...he gave me, as he called it, an Original Sin. Guilt."

His eyes got huge and he went from calm to straight up pissed off in a flash, "He what? How?"

"Twisted my emotions. He told me it would always be my fault, that night was my fault, everything would always be my fault and made it feel like it was. Said that he loved guilt because it was so easily warped. Then he walked out, reset the scene so I would see him walk by and blocked the whole conversation. Sam...I...everything..." I lost it again.

"Son of a bitch! He got to both of us."

"I fell for it, fell for them. That...all of that...they owned me from day one."

"You were four Dean! You'd just been traumatized by a frigging demon, lost your Mom and were scared shitless! No, they did not own you, they did not own either of us. We ripped their entire plan to shreds! This guilt that everyone has tried to tell you wasn't something you should feel, wasn't you. Don't you get it? It was him!"

"It doesn't matter, everything I've done, my whole life was based off that. So.."

"So you killed Abaddon, helped me defeat Lucifer, blew apart the Leviathans, sent hundreds of demons back to Hell because Azazel wanted you to? Do you realize how insane that sounds? If they owned you, you would be a Knight of Hell right now, not sitting here after saving the world again. If they owned you, you would have stepped aside when I let out Lucifer and let him take over. Did you do any of those things?"

"No..." Maybe it wasn't my fault. Maybe...

"Yes, okay maybe you wouldn't have run to a demon and ended up in Hell if it hadn't been for this guilt but that's not what matters. What matters is what you did after you found out what was going on. That's what's important. Azazel gave you that guilt to throw you off, throw us off. Screw with Heaven. In the end though we did the right thing. Me with the demon blood and you with your Original Sin as he called it, stopped the Apocalypse. We were supposed to be the pawns of Heaven and Hell and we threw it back in their faces. Do you see how that guilt didn't run your life? That even with that you pulled through. That you have never had anything to feel guilty for?"

"I don't?"

"No. Well maybe breaking a few hearts and committing some low level crimes here and there."

He was trying, I had to give him that, "It's not that simple Sam."

"I know, but you know what I'm getting at here. It's not like we haven't covered this ground before. But now? With this? Dean, he made you feel guilty for everything before you could even make decisions."

I managed to sit up under my own strength finally but he kept his arm around me, "What do I do with this? I don't even know where to start."

"Maybe try to forgive yourself."

"Sam, my whole world, all my life I did what I did because I felt I owed Dad and you something because I hadn't stopped him. I never questioned Dad because I was the reason he lost his wife, I protected you because I failed to protect her. I hunted, I..." It was getting hard to breathe again and I had to stop.

He looked away from me, then down, then back at me, "Remember what I told you about Amelia? How I had no road map for the first time in my life? How I was alone? How since I had nothing connecting me to hunting I decided to stop?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you're not exactly alone, I'm still here but you're kind of in the same place. Think about it. You've spent your whole life living for us because you thought you had to. What if you don't? You were four Dean, there was nothing you could have done. Nothing. Just like when we save little kids from ghosts and evil spirits. There is nothing they can do, they aren't physically or emotionally capable to stop what is going on. You were just like them back then."

He was right. There was nothing I could have done, nothing Dad could have done. Michael wiped the whole deal from Mom's mind when we went back in time so she didn't even know Azazel was coming for Sam till it was too late. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't. If that wasn't my fault, what really was?

"How is she?" I wasn't avoiding the topic, I just needed to know.

"That's the reason I came out here actually. We got her and Cougar all set up in the downstairs bedroom. Cougar got incense and all that going, he had a small drum in his car that he gave Roy and showed him what rhythm to play. I got the impression I was pretty much useless so I, well, I didn't exactly think your idea about researching was wrong."

I managed to smile a little at that, "We do like to get ourselves in trouble don't we?"

"Well Cougar was busy, so..." He shrugged.

"Find anything?"

"Not on the net, no. Natives never really wrote down anything related to their shamanic practices. Most of the Shamans say they are guided what to do by their spirits when the time comes. There's same basic herb lore but nothing related to this. I was about to quit when a rather large coyote showed up."

"Really? Guess it can do more than one thing at a time."

"Yeah, it said that a spirit sickness is just that, like a flu or something. That all we can do is support her, keep her in a safe place and wait. That it was doing all it could to keep Coyote from succumbing but it has to run it's course. Then it told me to get out here, because I could do more here than sitting in front of a computer."

"So we wait."

He nodded. "Not something we do all that well, I know."

The door opened. "Dean?" It was Roy, "I think you need to come inside. She's kind of awake, I think, but she's talking about that Mark and Cougar doesn't really know what's going on."

"What?" I bolted, Roy barely moved out of my way in time.

As soon as I saw her I knew what was wrong, her right arm was tight against her body, hand clenched into a fist, her left hand was over the exact spot where the Mark used to be and tears were running down her face. Her eyes were closed tight and she was breathing fast.

"Dean! Don't take it. Don't! Stop! You don't have to!"

Shit, "Coyote, honey. Listen. It's a dream darlin', you're not there. I'm fine. I'm right here."

Cougar looked up at me, "I told you..."

"Back off Cougar. I know, I won't touch her and I won't get closer than this. My corruption as you call it is already in her head anyway, that's why she's dreaming about it. I fucked up, I get it, but it was her damn choice not to tell me that she was picking up on all that. I tried to give her that pouch back, she told me to keep it, that she wanted me to. So instead of picking fights with me, accept that fact that she knew what she was doing and wanted to help. It's who she is. No matter how much I wished she'd done something different I'm not going to take the blame for this." Wow, that felt really damn weird to say.

There was this shimmering coming from the pendant around her neck, the one that had some writing on it I could barely see. "What's that necklace?"

Cougar took a minute to calm down, I think my reply caught him off guard as much as it had me, "She made that after Rising Dove died. It's in memory of him."

I heard that Healing Song she sang again, but not just in my head. It was just floating through the air, it wasn't her voice singing it either. It was Rising Dove's. Cougar went from angry to surprised to a bit awestruck in a matter of seconds. He closed his eyes and started singing along.

I can't sing for shit, I didn't know the words, or so I thought, but they seemed to come to me. I knew how to pronounce them and I don't speak a word of Lakota. It's a hard ass language to learn, the pronunciations are all different but that didn't seem to matter. Somehow Cougar's voice, mine and the ghost voice of Rising Dove meshed well enough and we worked our way through it three times. At the end of the third run through she relaxed and her eyes opened.

"Coyote?"

"Dean? Cougar? Where am I?"

Cougar reached down, took her in his arms and squeezed so hard I was pretty damn sure she couldn't breathe for a minute. "You're safe, you're safe."

"Hi darlin', we're at Jim's house. You got tagged by a demon snake thing, went down and we got you back here. Leaping Deer's taken care of."

Cougar set her back down, she held his hand for a minute then looked up at me. She'd told me years ago that if I kept making the same choices over and over I'd end up alone. We'd always kept each other at arm's length deep down but I didn't see the need anymore. I didn't really know how things stood with us, but I wasn't going to be that guy again, so I leaned down and kissed her. At first she didn't really respond but it didn't take long before I got an answer as to how things stood between us. I pulled back before things got really out of hand.

"Rest up, we'll talk later. I'm not going anywhere, promise."

I saw her face shift into that shaman look of concentration, "What happened? You look different."

"Later," then I took a deep breath, "Love ya. Get some rest."

If she wasn't already laying down I think she would have fallen over. I turned around and Sam was right there. He waited till I stepped out of the room before tackle hugging me. "About damn time!"

By the time he let me go I was pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot.


	24. Life With No Road Map

"Dude, it's not like I asked her marry me or anything," I pointed out, even though it had felt pretty good to say I loved her.

"Baby steps. Although for you that's pretty much the same thing."

"Whoa, slow down. Don't go remodeling my room or anything just yet, okay?"

He laughed and let me go.

"Is she okay?" Roy asked.

Poor guy looked completely wrecked. The fact that he'd held it together this long was pretty impressive actually. "Yeah, I think so. How're you holding up?"

He leaned against the wall, pretty much shell shocked, "I don't really know."

"Uh huh, come on. We need food and drinks."

"Maybe I should just stay here, not sure how functional I am."

"I'm driving, you don't have to do anything but sit there."

He didn't move.

"Roy, go. That's Dean's way of saying let's talk. For some reason those two words always seem too hard for him to say."

"Thanks for the translation Sammy."

Roy managed to grin at that for half a second, then pushed up off the wall and got moving in the general direction of the door. Once we got settled in and headed down the road I tried to get him started on processing the last few hours. "So, a bit different than taking down criminals huh?"

"I keep wondering if you guys drugged me somehow and this was all just a hallucination."

"Ah the first stage, looking for alternative explanations. Always a fun one."

"Those animals, or spirits or whatever. They were connected to people, to you. I killed people today Dean. I know they were bad people, I know they would have killed you or me if they had the chance and it was the right thing to do but still."

"Yeah I know."

"I thought this would be different somehow, not easier but less confusing. Easier to know the answers in the moment you know?'

"I warned you. I mean, sure you jumped into the super deep part of the ocean here but fact is killing monsters or people is still killing. It's just easier to justify it when they have mouths filled with fangs and are trying to rip your throat out. It still eats at you though."

He didn't say anything for a few minutes. I took a quick look at him, he seemed so young. When I was his age I'd already kissed a crossroads demon and made my deal, I don't ever remember feeling as young as he looked right then. Course I never got a chance to be.

"Maybe I shouldn't be doing this, helping Oliver. I don't think I have what it takes."

"Why?"

"Because all I could think of when we were out there was that those people had a point to be pissed. I know my history, I know what happened to the Native Americans. Sometimes I feel like I care too much about the people we catch, I could have ended up like them. How do you fight something that you can empathize with? I mean, you don't empathize with monsters. Do you? Oliver and Dig always seem so on target, determined, like you and Sam did today."

"You saw my Warrior Spirit right?"

"Yes."

"Trust me Roy, I know what a monster feels like and how easy it is to get there. So does Sam. I told you before, we've let some monsters walk. The only thing that divides a monster from a human isn't what they hunger for, vegetarians probably think I'm a monster because of the amount of burgers I eat. I've probably killed a whole farm's worth of cows over the years. What divides the two is how they act and honestly empathy is something monsters don't have, so if you have it it's a good sign. You've had chances to walk away from this life, you haven't. You've got what it takes. You've got the skills, you're just as good as Oliver is in a fight. You saved Sam's life, saved my life, saved all of us today. You think fast, you move faster and you have the will to do it. You don't need Oliver, hell you really don't need Sam and I. I'll let you in on something. Oliver and I, you're way ahead of us in some ways."

That shocked him, "How?"

"What you said about seeing what Oliver sees, that comes from experience but that's not what keeps you alive in the end. We all make mistakes, hell we still do but what it comes down to is your mind set. Your ability to remember what's important and why you're doing all this at the end of the day. Where you lose your way is when you can't see that anymore. When I first met Oliver he was a lot darker then he is now and Sam got to see an even scarier version of him. What you saw when he played martyr, that's what happens when all the losses you've suffered make you close up, stop letting people in, stop listening because you just can't take another hit. Oliver didn't let any of you guys too far in because he was afraid, afraid to feel, afraid to have any hope."

"But he fights to help other people, so he has to have hope. Right?"

"I can almost guarantee that he started doing that to keep Dig where he needed him, not because he wanted to. Oliver knew he needed help pulling off the secret identity assassin gig. He probably planned originally to use Dig, check the names off his Dad's list and move on. I'd guess that he was so far gone from all the shit he went through during those five years that he'd become more killer than anything else. Dig got through to him, not much but enough. Enough to make him start seeing past what he'd dedicated his life to."

"Okay, but how am I ahead of you?"

"You still ask questions and you're willing to let Thea in. You ask for help. Oliver and I? We pretty much suck at that. You see that people can help you through, keep you sane. Oliver forgot that. I know it but I'm pretty damn lucky because I have Sam. We grew up doing this, so there's never been a reason to keep what I was doing from him. We both had the same secret, the same history but sometimes even he's not enough. That's where someone like Thea comes in."

I could see him making connections. "You and Coyote?"

"Yeah and Oliver and Felicity. It doesn't have to be a chick but it has to be someone you can let everything go with. Sam and I are a whole helluva a lot closer than most brothers out there, but I'm still the big brother. You know how that works. You said you have a younger brother right?

"Right and you can't let your kid brother see you're scared or totally lost."

"Yup. Years ago, after I sold my soul to save Sam I was pretty close to off the rails. Probably a lot like how Oliver has been with the whole Merlyn thing. I made us hunt non stop, I wouldn't talk about it, had nightmares and drank way too damn much. Time was running out. We were looking for a way out but there wasn't one. Something we did caused demons to possess some of Coyote's people, we went to help. Because of what we'd done with deals and such Coyote and her teacher told us we had to be purified, but that wasn't what happened. We did a sweat ceremony and Sam and I saw what our futures were, I saw and felt everything that would happen to me in Hell. Coyote and I had had an on again off again thing for years, there was always something there, but you know, the life got in the way. Anyway, I couldn't let Sam see how fucked up I was. I could barely walk but after he passed out I made my way to her house and lost it. My plan had been to leave the next day but Sam got to her first. He told her that she had to make me stay, make me take some time off, make me realize what I was living for. She listened and made her point pretty damn fast. I stayed a few days which are still some of the best memories I have. Those days reminded me that I was still alive, they took that edge away. That fear that'd been eating at me. Sam knew I wouldn't let him take care of me, wouldn't listen to him, but I would listen to her. You already have all that with Thea. I saw how you two were, how you feel about each other. You have the heart to do this Roy, you have the skills and you have a person that will stick by you no matter what as long as you don't fuck it up. What it all comes down to is if you want to."

By then we'd gotten to the restaurant, "Coming in?"

"No, I think I'll wait."

"Cool. Care what I get you to eat?"

"Burger's fine."

"Sure thing." I got out of Baby, went inside and ordered Coyote's and Sam's favorites, grabbed a steak for me, burgers for Roy and Cougar and a huge blueberry pie. I was looking forward to seeing her smile when she saw it. I paid, grabbed all the bags and got back in the driver's seat. Roy looked less like he was wondering if he was delusional and more like he'd been doing some serious thinking, "Any of that help at all?"

"Yeah I think it did. Thanks."

"Good. I don't usually do the words of wisdom thing, that's more Sam's area of expertise."

"He and I had a pretty long talk last night too. But he's not an older brother, you, me and Oliver, we all are. Makes a difference."

"Yeah, guess it does. Drinks next then back to Jim's."

"Hey Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"You really think I'm as good as Oliver in a fight?"

"Hell yeah. More fun too. Oliver's kind of a downer on long drives, at least you get my jokes. He threatened to shoot my tires out because of some worms."

"Worms?"

I saw a pretty sneaky ass look in his eyes. I hadn't planned on saying anything but I couldn't pass this up. Roy does live there after all, "He can't stand them. I put some in his shoes. He shot an arrow through my beer can and my fishing pole. Who does that?"

"What a jackass. Ruin a perfectly good beer just because he's cranky."

"See? You understand."

"Course I do."

We both cracked up at that point. He'd be fine, one way or another.


	25. Second Chances

We got back to Jim's house after picking up the required alcoholic content for surviving yet another end of the world scenario and started walking inside.

"I should call Thea. Let her know what's going on."

"Good idea, she's probably worried about that suit she bought you."

"It'll be the first thing she asks about."

I wasn't exactly sure if he was kidding even though he said it with a smile. Cougar and Sam were sitting on the folding chairs in the living room, recuperating it looked like.

"Coyote still awake?" I asked as I handed out the food.

"She's been dozing in and out of sleep but seems over the sickness," Cougar replied. "Dean, after you left, she and I had a talk."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. "Okay, and?" It wasn't exactly shame on his face but it felt like he was looking for some sort of understanding from me. "What's up?"

"She never explained to me the source of your nightmares that she was feeling or the fact that she wanted you to keep using the pouch, I just saw her in pain and knew it had something to do with you. I knew you'd chosen to leave her when she needed someone the most. I didn't understand why. Today, what I saw, I, well it made me think about things a little differently. You're not a coward. Today you fought like a Warrior would and it seems you always have."

I hadn't really thought too far ahead about things if Coyote and I were going to try to make something happen but knowing that Cougar didn't really want to kill me would make things a lot easier. I may not have had a lot of long term relationships but I'm pretty sure having the much larger than you best friend of the woman you're dating hating your guts isn't a good starting point. "Thanks. Don't worry about it. Roles reversed? I would have been acting the exact same way. Think it's all right if I go see her? I brought her food."

"Yes, I think so."

"Awesome, got you a burger. Hope it's how you like it."

He took the container from me with a smile and a quick nod, "Thank you."

"No worries." I gave Sam his food and took mine, hers and the pie into the bedroom. Her eyes were closed but I didn't think she's was all that deep asleep. I sat down next to her and opened the food containers up.

"Is that pulled pork?"

"Yup." She's always been into barbecue, "Looked up the best place in town. Made a special trip. Don't open your eyes yet." I took the pie, lifted the lid and stuck it by her nose.

"Mmmm, I love a man who brings me dead pig and blueberry pie."

"And that's why we've always gotten along so well. Similar tastes in food."

She laughed and got vertical enough to eat, "The entire basis of our relationship, good food and good sex."

"Correction, good food and great sex. Besides what else is there?"

"True, does tend to keep things uncomplicated." Her smile faded but she dug into the food and I took the hint.

We ate in silence, well mostly. She did moan a few times while eating her pork.

Must be some good damn pork, "Guess it deserves it's reputation."

"Almost as good as Stella and Ralph's."

"Seriously? You better share then." I used my fork to pull some of the pork off her plate.

"Hey!"

"I found the place, I get a taste. Them's the rules." As soon as the pork hit my tongue I shut up and groaned too, "Oh my God. Damn. I should have gotten that instead of the steak."

She scooted away from me and pulled her plate closer to her chest, "Hands off Winchester. Rest is mine."

"You're too tired to put up a good fight."

"I'll call Cougar in here, he's not."

"So not fair." I looked back down at my plate and cut another piece of steak. "I'm only letting you off because you've had a tough day."

"How chivalrous of you."

"I try." We finished the main course and I dug out two pieces of pie, which was somewhat of a letdown after that pork but it was good enough.

She set her plate aside, "So?"

"Yeah." Neither of us really wanted to take the plunge and start this talk, I figured I'd try to ease us into it. "Do your people really think that? That you're a white man's whore?"

She sighed and look pretty irritated, "Some do, they always will, but you knew that."

"Not to the extent Leaping Deer made it sound. Was that why you and Cougar were alone?"

"Yes and no."

She'd never liked to talk about how her people viewed her, she'd rather pretend it didn't bother her but I knew better. Her and I aside, if she'd been working her ass of for two years as Shaman and they still treated her like crap I wanted to know. Not that I could do anything, but still.

"There are some that thought she was right but not the majority of the people I talked to."

"So why?"

I recognized the look she gave me, I should, I've seen it on mine and Sam's face enough.

"The other people, even the other Shamans would have no idea how to handle that fight. Most of them do the ceremonies and serve more as leaders these days. There's not a lot of them that work with the spirits like Rising Dove did and I do. The ones that do, I told them to stay back in case I didn't beat her. I didn't want all of us to be in one place in case she was stronger than I thought."

Her strategy was good but, well, I'm a protective kind of guy. "So you just dove headlong into this? What if Sam and I hadn't been around?'

And she's a woman that hates to be protected.

"Cougar and I have been managing pretty damn well on our own. Thanks."

We sort of glared at each other, but she smiled first. "What's it been, seven years? We going to have another long talk about me taking risks?"

"Leaping Deer was in a whole other class than Dancing Badger and you know it, but no, we're not. That's not what we need to talk about anyway."

She moved closer to me and laid her hand on my arm. "What's bringing all this on Dean?"

"First things first, I want a better answer about the pouch. Please. Sweetheart, what you saw..." Knowing that she had any clue about what I'd become because of the Mark bothered the hell out of me. I had enough issues dealing with it as it is, it disgusted me and it wasn't something I was all that proud of. I didn't need to know that it had disgusted her too.

Coyote usually never looks away from you when she talks. She's the type that will tell you to your face whatever the hell it is that she thinks you need to know, whether you want to know or not. I knew the moment she took her eyes off me that what she going to say made her pretty uncomfortable.

"I saw a lot of things over the years you had that pouch you know. I never told you because, well, it made me feel closer to you. When we went months between seeing each other it was how I knew you were still alive, still safe. After I read that letter you left, I wanted to take off after you and spend all the time with you I could before you got dragged to Hell. We weren't there yet though, I knew you'd run and I really wasn't ready to take that step. Remember the owl that woke us up that night?"

"Yeah."

"I'd been thinking about ways I could try to convince you to stay or just go on the road with you. The owl screeched, it was an omen. You got up and checked the house and..."

I reached out, put my hand on her chin and guided her face back around so I could watch her eyes, she moved her head but kept her eyes down. "And?"

"How you moved, how you acted, I saw it already. You'd started down that path of a killer, a predator and I knew that no matter what I said or did you'd keep going because you thought you had to, you had to protect Sam, do your job. That somehow you were being punished for something. You always have but..."

I shouldn't have been surprised that she was dead on, being a Shaman and all but I was. Course Sam had seen it too, so'd everyone else. Everyone but me, but even if I had, with how I was back then and the guilt from Azazel I wouldn't have stopped. Hell even Crowley told me I hated myself but that didn't stop me. You'd think that when the King of Hell is giving you life lessons you'd listen. Guess even he wasn't a big enough brick wall to knock some sense into me. She looked guilty though and there was no reason for her to.

"But what?"

Her eyes came up and they were filled to the brim with tears, "But I should have tried. Instead I just sat back and let you destroy yourself. I'm so sorry."

"Hey, no, no...not your fault," I pulled her tight against me and she buried her face into my neck.

"I tried, when we were together but I...I guess I didn't know what to say, or do. I should have pushed more, told you more, I don't know..."

"Sam told me plenty of times, you did too in your own way, so did Bobby and everyone else. I didn't want to hear it. I couldn't. None of this is on you."

"The worse you got, the more I felt that the only way I could help you was to throw everything I could into that pouch, that connection. It wasn't too bad until this last year."

She flinched, I held her tighter but didn't say anything.

"That thing that almost took you over, why? Why did you do it?"

"I seriously fucked up with Sam, almost lost him. Thought I deserved it. The usual."

She pulled away, there were tears running down her face but she was pissed and hurt, "You complete idiot! No one ever deserves that! Ever! What it wanted from you, what it did to you. God Dean!"

"I didn't exactly know what it would do at the time, there wasn't a manual that came along with it."

"Don't lie to me. Those things don't just innocently show up, you had to know something."

Now it was my turn to be uncomfortable. "Yeah, maybe, kind of." I could tell she wanted to keep yelling at me about it, "Lesson learned promise. Back to you. You let it affect you, why?"

"You know why."

"Say it. Why did you let something that damn evil affect you without letting me know?"

"To help you and because I knew as long as you were using that pouch there was still some of you left. That it hadn't won."

"Is that it?" I had to hear her say it, had to know that we were on the same page before I screwed things up. We'd danced around it for so long and I'd run last time she brought it up, I needed confirmation. It had been two years since I'd seen her or even talked to her. Sure, Leaping Deer had made it pretty clear that she hadn't found anyone else but she could have been lying.

"No."

"Was Leaping Deer right? About you?"

I could see she wanted to say it but something was holding her back and I'm the last person who should be upset about that. She pulled me close and barely whispered in my ear, "Yes."

Her lips lingered on my neck for a long minute and my shirt started feeling damp from her tears. We needed to move this conversation elsewhere. The floor wasn't all that comfortable and this was going to take a few hours, plus we were technically in a house we'd broken into and the guys were waiting for us. "All right, look. Let's get back to the hotel, we're all beat, the guys probably want to crash and this isn't exactly our house. Sound good?"

She totally relaxed into my arms, I took that as a yes. "Take a minute, I'll go talk to them. Be right back."


	26. Meaningless Years

I went out into the living room, Cougar and Sam were just finishing up their food and I didn't see Roy. "Let's move this party back to the hotel. She's okay to move and we're all beat. Where's Roy?"

"Outside talking to Thea," Sam answered. "You driving or?"

I shot a quick look at Cougar, I didn't really want to step on his toes and he had to still be pretty concerned about her.

"I'll take Sam and Roy back," he said, "She has the keys to her room."

"Sounds good. Thanks."

We cleaned up, wiped the place down for prints and Roy walked back inside. "We moving?"

"Yeah, hotel. You're riding with Cougar and Sam, I'll take Coyote."

"All right."

I snagged the bottle of whiskey and they took the rest of the alcohol and trash and left. I went back into the bedroom, "You ready to go?"

She nodded and slowly stood up. I got my arm around her waist and she leaned pretty hard into me. "Still not feeling too hot huh?"

"Headache, weak, kind of dizzy but I'll live. The food helped. Thanks for making the trip."

"Sure thing." We worked our way to Baby, I got her into the passenger seat and we headed back. The spot right in front of her room was open so I pulled in and helped her get to the door. Once the door was open I picked her up and set her on the bed. "Need anything?"

"No."

"Good," I settled in right next to her and she curled up, put her hand on my chest and sighed.

"Missed this."

"Me too." We didn't say much at first, we both needed to readjust to being around each other, especially after what I'd said. It felt good to feel her next to me, hear her breathing but there was a feeling about it that hadn't been there before. In the past, I'd always seen the times I spent with her as a break from my real life. I wouldn't let myself get too comfortable with it, she hadn't either. Once we'd hit the third or at the most fourth day of being around each other walls started going back up. Sometimes hers had first, sometimes mine, but there was so much baggage that I carried from being a hunter that I made sure to split before I could get used to being around her. I'd tell myself it was the best for everyone, blah, blah but there were times it hurt like hell and I'd had to force myself to leave. Now, with what her guide had shown me I could look at that baggage in a totally different way. Who did I have to live for now? That guilt had always pushed me, without it, or with at least knowing where it stemmed from I had to figure out what was actually important to me. What I wanted.

"So, I had an interesting conversation with your guide. It said you asked it to talk some sense into me."

I couldn't see her face but I felt her lips shift into a smile, "Maybe."

"Uh huh. Bold choice there, thinking a furry spirit would get through to me."

She tensed up a bit, "After seeing your Warrior Spirit, I thought you'd be willing to listen. I know that had to have gotten to you, seeing yourself like that."

"Yeah, it did. Your guide showed me something that I'd buried a long time ago and something that was blocked from me."

"Want to tell me?" She said as she sat up.

"In a minute. First, thank you for doing what you did with the pouch, giving me something to hold on to. There were way too many nights where that was the only thing keeping me sane, giving me the strength to hold on against the Mark." I lightly kissed her forehead and pulled back, "Sam did everything he could but the Mark started to turn me against him, it was part of it. I had to push him away so really all I had was you. I was too busy fighting to realize that what I felt from the pouch, from you, was getting stronger. If I had I would have gotten a hold of you sooner." She opened her mouth to tell me it wouldn't have changed things, I put my finger over her lips and she waited. "Let me finish. I know what you would have said, but it's been gone over a month now and the only reason I called you was this job. That's wrong and nothing you say is going to change my mind. If nothing else I should have at least said thank you."

She nodded, "Okay."

"Second, after Rising Dove died I should have stayed longer. I know you called me out about us, you had a right to but I could have handled that better, offered to stay as a friend and helped you, not a lover. I took it as all or nothing and left. It didn't have to be, you were mourning someone, hurting and although you were right about me using you as a port in the storm and I should have proved you wrong. I wanted to, I just didn't really know how. Which is stupid, as many people as I've lost you'd think I'd know how to deal with it."

"You've always dealt with it by getting back on the road."

That hurt, truth usually does. "I'm tired of the road Coyote."

I'm pretty sure that was the last thing she ever expected to hear and it was the last thing I ever expected to say. I was as shocked as she was when it came out of my mouth and it takes a lot to shock people like us.

"At some point you can tell me what you saw over the last year if you want but I'll tell you what I saw. Death, a lot of death, caused by me, caused by things I never forgave people for and wouldn't let go of. When Sam and I got rid of that damn thing I saw pretty far into my own brain, so did Sam. We've spent the last month at friend's house just talking, fishing of all things and being brothers. No weapons in the house, no news, no hunts, nothing, just talking everything out. We had a lot of ground to cover. I started getting restless, I think I had to prove to myself that the Mark was really gone so wanted to hunt one more time. Thing was, when we got into Baby I really didn't want to turn the key. I wanted to stay right there. While you were on the way here Sam and I got into it a bit because my head wasn't in the game, neither was my heart. We'd agreed to try to do things different, which is one reason we brought Roy. Sam knew once we hit the road we'd fall back into the old patterns, the patterns that led to the Mark and he was right. I felt it before we were even halfway here. I started to close up again, go darker. Sam told me either find a reason to fight or stop because if I wasn't fighting to save people there was no point. I found a reason, but it wasn't my reason, it was that I felt I owed people, the people who'd died. That type of thinking is what got me into the whole mess with the Mark to begin with, along with a lot of other shit."

As I'd been talking her walls started dropping. The last time I'd been this open with her was the night of the vision. Not that we hadn't talked about crap in our lives before but it was usually surface stuff, at least for me. Most of the time when we were together thinking about our lives wasn't all that high on the list of things to do.

"You want to stop hunting?"

"I don't know for sure, but what I do know is that for the foreseeable future I want to avoid any and all end of the world fights and not spend hours on the road hunting another monster. I've got nothing left to do it with. You saw that."

She leaned away from me and even though her walls were mostly down, the corners of her eyes narrowed. Sure she cared for me but she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to open herself again just for me to leave in a few days.

I had to tell her, "You know how you said that I always felt I had to punish myself?"

"Yes."

"Your guide showed me why. That yellow eyed demon that got to Sam, got to me too, same night just in a different way. He gave me that guilt, embedded it into my mind, he was trying to screw with Michael but he couldn't physically harm me or else the angels would show up. I was four Coyote, he made me believe everything was my fault, that my Mom died because of me, that anything that would ever happen was because I fucked up. Everything I've been and done has been based on that. I never really knew why I was like this, but now I do and I really don't want to be like this anymore. I want to make different choices."

Coyote's not really the type to throw her arms around you and break down when she hears things like that. She's the type to try to find ways to help you through it right then and there, try to find some way to solve the problem or work through it, attack things head on. "You're sure you killed that bastard?"

It was pretty clear that if I said no she'd start trying to find a way to kill him herself, which is kind of one reason I love her, "Oh yeah."

"Good." She ran her hand down my cheek, "I'm glad that Sister Coyote helped you. She is a trickster spirit so you never know what you'll get from her."

"Well, she's not the first trickster I've come across, that one tried to teach hard lessons too. Sam and I just didn't listen, as usual."

"So, saying you loved me?"

"Trying to do things differently." I took her hand in mine, "Funny story, I got nervous waiting for you to get here, that never happened before. Excited, hell yeah, nervous. Not so much. I didn't want to find out you'd found someone else even though I felt you should have. When you walked right past me and hugged Sam, it hurt like hell. I get why you did it, it's okay. We've kept each other at arm's length for years. This may crash and burn but I know where my usual choices lead. This isn't a port in a storm thing Coyote, it really isn't. It's up to you of course but if you want to give it a shot, so do I."

"I've got a funny story too," she said as she got closer to me, "The things I saw and felt from that pouch weren't just nightmares. Cougar couldn't understand why I never moved on after you left since in his mind you'd bailed on me, but I knew better and if you think about it you do too. You say you didn't help me when I needed you the most, but you're wrong. All those time you held that pouch and though about me me, about us, you weren't the only one you pulled strength from that. I did too. I didn't need to move on because to me, you'd never really left. You just weren't ready to physically be where you really wanted to be. Neither was I, being Shaman scared me. I thought I would have to turn into someone else to do it because I would have so many more responsibilities, but it really didn't, not deep down. I've changed Dean, so have you but this never has."

When she kissed me the last two years disappeared. She was right, nothing had changed because it felt just as good as it had the last time. In some ways even better because there was nothing left unsaid anymore. Well almost nothing. She pulled back just enough so she could talk, "Love you too."


	27. Picking Up Where You Left Off - End

It's funny how hearing something you really never have rocks your world. I knew people had loved me over the years, people who don't love you don't throw themselves in front of bullets and demons, rebel against Heaven to save your ass a few times or take you in when you have nowhere else to go after your brother jumps into Lucifer's cage. Hearing it from her was different, maybe because it had taken so long for her to say it or for me to be ready to hear it. I won't say that the guilt and crap I've carried for years fell away and disappeared, because it didn't. It was just a lot less important. The only thing that mattered was her and the potential for an us somewhere in the future. I've kissed a lot of women in my life, none of those kisses felt like this one did. I didn't want it to end, didn't want to take it anywhere else, go any further. We didn't need to, the physical stuff we'd already done plenty of times, this was all new.

Unfortunately, at some point you have to breathe. The kiss stopped but our lips were still touching, just enough to send sparks down my spine.

She let out this really low, breathy chuckle. "Well, that was different."

"I kind of like different." I went in for another one, which was just as good as the first one but the rest of my body was catching up to my emotions, which I really didn't want so I broke it off. That threw her off.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She got this quizzical look on her face and laid the back of her hand against my forehead, "You must be coming down with something."

"Smart ass. I'm fine." I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my shirt, laid back down, got my arm under her, pulled her as close as I could and gave her another kiss. "Get some rest, you still look wiped out."

"I'm not that wiped out," She took a good long look at me and I saw her get it, "Course, you've had a long day too haven't you."

"You know, you can't really build up a tolerance to having your soul or spirit pulled out of you and shoved back in. It's not like cardio, it doesn't get easier the more you do it."

"Huh, that never came up in the lore books I read."

I laughed. "So we're taking a shot at this then?"

She nestled up against me and closed her eyes. "I told you I love you. What do you think?"

"I think you're going to have to keep me in check when I run across the people who have issues with us."

"Us? It really is a day of firsts for you isn't it?"

"Yeah, trying to get them all out the way quick. Sort of like jumping into a cold lake."

Her hand went to that spot that she's the only one to have ever found and the idea of cold left my brain pretty fast. "Once you get used to it though, that's when the fun starts."

"I'll remember that. I have a place now. How do you want to do this? Your place or mine?"

"I have to go back home. I've already been on the road for a few weeks. You decide." I felt a kiss on my ribs, then she moved her hand and relaxed. It didn't take all that long for her to go sleep and I drifted off to the sound of her breathing.

I woke up a few hours later, she'd rolled away from me but was still asleep. I grabbed my phone and texted Sam, "You up? Need to talk. There, I said it. Happy?"

It took a minute or two but he texted back, "Coyote? Why are you on Dean's phone?"

"Shut up jerk."

"Bitch. Get over here."

I wrote a note telling her where I was and why, got dressed and headed upstairs. He had the door open before I even got there. "Hey."

"Hey, Roy pass out?"

"Yeah. I got some sleep too. Coyote?"

"Sleeping." I grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down and handed him Baby's keys. "I'm not going back to the Bunker, at least not right now so you'll need a way home."

He just stared, then a huge grin broke out on his face, "See, told you. You said it, now you're moving in together. Where are you going to register for gifts?"

"Back up there Bueller, this doesn't mean you can throw wild parties and trash the place."

"Aww, but Dad!"

"Stop, just stop. I am not that old."

"Says you." He stopped grinning like a teenager, "Sorry. So things went well then?"

"Yeah." Now that I was thinking past the next few hours I started wondering what the hell I was doing. I don't know crap about her people really, what her life consisted of now or if we'd make it past a week before we got sick of each other. "She said it back Sam, told me that even though we'd changed and it'd been years whatever has been between us is still there. What if I screw this up? I've never really done this before."

"You lived with Lisa."

"Yeah but this is different."

"I know."

"What do I do?" Sam at least had had two somewhat normal relationships, before I yanked him away from them anyway. "Let's face it, I'm not exactly Mr. White Picket Fence and Two point Five kids."

"And she lives in a round house, has an engineering degree, is a hunter and a Shaman. I don't think she cares about normal, do you?"

"No, but.."

"Dean listen. Here's what you do, be yourself and take it one day at a time."

"Be myself? Sort of been doing that, hasn't turned out that great."

"Yes, be yourself. Be the guy that stood there while Lucifer beat the crap out of him so his brother wouldn't be alone, be the guy who's saved kids from vengeful spirits, be the guy that refused to let his brother be soul less or die. Be the guy who raised his kid brother and kept him safe. Be the guy that she's kept coming back to for years. Be that guy and you'll be fine. Be the guy that Azazel tried to ruin but managed to pull through anyway. Don't be the guilt that he gave you. You've been that for too long already." He raised his beer, "Just go for it. Don't worry about me or the monsters. We took a month off and the world kept going. You need this. Do it."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Now grab your crap and get back over there."

I got up, he followed suit and this time I bear hugged him. He was doing for me what I'd never done for him, pushing me to go for another life, try something different. It slowly started sinking in that I wouldn't have to wake up tomorrow and go kill something else, that the fate of the world wasn't on me and that everything wasn't my fault. I felt a million pounds lighter and I actually wanted to see what was out there for me, for Coyote and I. I let him go and started packing my stuff up, he sat back down and opened his laptop.

"Hey, before you go, want to show you something. Not a job, promise." He turned the laptop around, on the screen were the most hideous, minimalist, modern art shaped things I'd ever seen. It said they were chairs but I had no idea how anyone would sit on them. "I was thinking these would look good in the Bunker. What do you think?" He kept his face dead serious.

I dropped my bags. "Sam if you ever, and I mean ever, put shit like that in the Bunker I will summon every ghost of every Men of Letters that existed and send them after you. Then when they're done I'll kick the crap out of you, repeatedly. How dare you!"

He tried to keep a straight face and pulled it off for thirty seconds or so before he busted out laughing. "Dude, I don't think I could even fit into those things."

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" I picked my bags back up and he walked me to the door.

He put his hand on my shoulder before I stepped out, "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, want to say bye to Roy. Make sure he's all right. Night."

"Night."

I snuck back in the room, or thought I had. She was still sleeping but was under the blankets now. I changed into some sweats, pulled the sheets back and realized she was wearing a lot less than when I'd left, a whole lot less.

"Sam's caught up?" She asked.

"Yeah, gave him the keys for Baby so he can get home. Figured I'd hitch a ride with you."

"Good, so no reason for us to get up early then is there." She got her hands around my neck, pulled me down hard, threw a leg across my side and knocked me sideways onto the bed.

"Nope. Guess you're feeling better."

My sweats were off in half a second, not quite sure how she managed it from the position she was in but I had other things on my mind, like her lips roving across my chest. "Yeah, I am and I've waited way too long for this."

Another reason I love her, because like me, subtlety was never her strong suit. She sees something she wants, she takes it.

...

About two weeks later I got a text at two in the morning. Coyote was in bed next to me and woke up when the alert went off. "That can't be good. Who is it?'

It'd been some of the best times of my life, Cougar had flown home from Colorado, Sam followed Roy and went back to Starling. Coyote and I had taken our time getting back to her place. We stopped by Stella and Ralph's place and loaded up on pie and food, they'd even remembered me even though it'd been a few years. I got a few nasty looks from some of the people on the Reservation at first but when I started making myself useful around the place they faded. Coyote had been using the money she made from her engineering gigs to help remodel and build houses, plant gardens and in general spruce the place up. I know my way around a construction site so pitched in where I could. Things were going a lot smoother than I'd expected they would. Sam and I texted every few days, he had extended his vacation too and decided to help Oliver out for a change of pace. It made me feel a lot better knowing he wasn't hunting alone.

"It's Roy, what the? Oh no."

"Something wrong?"

It was a shot of Roy with a huge ass grin on his face holding a handful of worms right above one of Oliver's Arrow suit boots. Someone was taking the pic because Roy's other hand was giving me a thumbs up.

"Dude, hope you have new tires already." I sent back.

"I feel like there's a story here," she said. I told her about Oliver's undying hatred of worms and she busted out laughing.

Another text came through, it was a video this time. I pushed play. They were in the club, the camera looked like it was stashed low to the ground because I saw Felicity's feet and Oliver's as he walked up, took his suit off the mannequin and grabbed his bow.

"I tracked the robbers to the Glades." Felicity said.

"On it. Roy? Suit up."

"Sure."

Then Oliver's feet faded into the background and I heard Roy and Felicity both chuckle.

"What the fuck?" Oliver came back into frame, holding his shoe and enraged. Felicity cracked up along with Roy and the vid stopped. I just about dropped the phone I was laughing so hard.

"Breathe Dean, breathe."

"Oh God, I can't. That's was awesome." I managed to get my phone back in my hands and texted. "Great job! Proud of you. Now run."

"Way ahead of you." He sent back. Then another picture came through, it was from Oliver. There was a rather large mass of decimated worms with one of his exploding arrows in the center and the words, "You told him, didn't you."

"Who me?" I replied.

"The Impala is here you know."

"You said if I put worms in your shoes or anywhere in the club, not Roy. Therefore Baby and I are exempt from your threat. Nice try though."

The next picture was a selfie of Oliver, pissed off, stony faced and flipping me off. "I hate you."

"You're welcome. Have fun cleaning up that mess."

Coyote cracked up, I barely managed to get the phone back on the dresser before another fit of laughter hit me. "He's so damn serious, it's just too easy."

We finally stopped laughing, she propped herself up on an arm and looked at me. "You know in all the years I've known you, you've never been this relaxed, this happy."

"I never had a reason to be."

I kissed her and we settled back into bed. I hadn't had a nightmare in a week, I wasn't paranoid and had barely had anything to drink. I'd managed to finally make a different choice and it felt damn good.

-End


End file.
